Ministers, MLAs furnish fake health bills

HYDERABAD: Several politicians andtheir families are claiming reimbursements by producing fake bills, some fortreatment of heart diseases and diabetes at primary health centres andgovernment dispensaries where treatment for such ailments are notprovided.Official sources said the ceiling for a minister fortreatment of a particular ailment at a medical institution is Rs 1 lakh and foran MLA Rs 75,000. The loophole lies here. There are no restrictions on thenumber of treatments undergone in a month or year for ministers, MLAs and theirfamily members.Last year, over Rs 70 lakh was sanctioned by thegovernment towards medical reimbursement for incumbent and former Assemblymembers. Bills worth Rs 75.15 lakh were claimed.Of these, formerlegislators T Rudraiah, A G Krishna and Ch Vittal Reddy claimed Rs 2.5 lakh eachlast year, which were inflated, sources said.Ministers alsoregularly claim single bills of over Rs 25,000 for dental treatment at privatedental clinics and legislators claim bills of over Rs 50,000 in a month fortreatment of diabetes at government dispensaries.According to anofficial of the health department who clears the bills, MLAs claim medical billson a regular basis and most of these bills, if one goes by the prescription anddosage, are inflated. “Irrespective of the party, if one goes by therecord of medical reimbursement bills, every alternate member of the Assembly isseriously sick and diseased,� a doctor maintaining anonymitysaid.Bills issued by well-known corporate hospitals in the city havealso come under the scrutiny of the officials who clear the bills. Some of thesebills show prescriptions of heavy doses, that if consumed will prove to be fatalto patients, sources said.For a particular treatment when the claimis illogical and the department calls for reduction in claim, the claimantsconcerned pressurise officials to clear the bills, sources said.Inaddition to this a new government order providing for the medical reimbursementceiling from Rs 75,000 to Rs 1 lakh for class I officers is also to beimplemented, he said.