Maha Dialysis services halt in Kolhapur, including centre in Health Minister's town Gargoti

Maha Dialysis services have shut down in Kolhapur district, home district of state Health Minister Prakash Abitkar. The dialysis centre in Gargoti, the town where the minister lives, is also closed. All centres in the district are down, so kidney patients have to go from place to place for treatment.

Schemes such as Maha Dialysis, Mahalab and Aapla Dawakhana were started under the National Health Mission to give free health services to ordinary patients in villages and cities. HLL Lifecare Limited, the company running these services, is owed Rs 1,067.25 crore by the state government. For this reason the company has decided to stop its services across the state. The impact has been felt directly by patients in Kolhapur district as well.

The state health department had signed a ten-year agreement with the company under the National Health Mission. Under it, services had been provided for the past seven years through about 400 Mahalabs, 225 Aapla Dawakhanas and 110 dialysis centres in the state.

The company has said it had not received payments from the government for the past two years, which put it in financial crisis. Salaries of more than 4,000 of its employees are held up. The company says it had also become difficult to buy diagnostic kits, medicines and other supplies needed for the laboratories. It repeatedly approached the public health department about the dues, but did not get the response or the money it expected, and only then decided to stop services.

As a result, free services that farmers, farm labourers, women and economically weaker people in rural areas depended on have stopped. Tests such as CBC, thyroid and biochemistry at Mahalabs, free treatment at Aapla Dawakhana and the dialysis service are all closed.

Dialysis is a regular part of the treatment of patients whose kidneys have failed. The sudden halt has created great difficulty for patients and their families. Poor patients cannot afford dialysis at private hospitals, so they depended on the free government service.

The government scheme was launched with great fanfare. The question now being raised is why ordinary patients should pay the price when thousands of crores of rupees are owed to contractors and services are allowed to stop.

To seek Health Minister Prakash Abitkar's response, an attempt was made to contact his personal secretary, who did not answer the phone. An official reaction from the minister could therefore not be obtained.