Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy has made a scathing attack on the private hospitals. In a letter to Prime Minister Modi here, Mr. Jagan said the private clinics were exploiting the people in vaccination very extremely. Some of them were collecting Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 25,000 from the public. Hence, the Centre should not give vaccines to the managements of private hospitals.

Mr. Jagan Reddy told the PM that the over exploitation by the hospitals was hampering the State Government’s big plan to provide vaccination to all the people freely. He said that the AP Government had decided to give free vaccines to all the people but the shortage of vaccines was causing problems in this.

The CM said that if the Centre stopped supply of vaccines to the private hospitals, it would become easier for the State Government to overcome the shortage problems and to give vaccines to all. Because of the shortage problem, AP was right now able to give vaccines to only those above 45 years of age.

Mr. Jagan urged the Prime Minister to ensure that the vaccines would be available only with either the Centre or the State Governments. This would help in rationalising the vaccine stocks so that all sections of people could get vaccinated in due course of time.