nagpur more than 110 private hospitals in vidarbha are facing a tough time after lockdown on saturday the vidarbha hospital association vha wrote to union minister nitin gadkari requesting him to intervene and get the dues of hospital expenses under various central health schemes cleared from various central government departmentsas most hospitals in vidarbha come under small enterprises they wanted msme minister gadkari to help them get their long pending dues according to vha rs100 crore of nagpur hospitals are pending with the governmentin fact the amount is even more and it is pending since more than two years now said vha convener dr sameer paltewar vha has already written to additional director of cghs cmd of wcl commissioner of esic and many other organization heads but not received any payments towards pending bills dr paltewar informed that the ministry of finance has issued directives to release the pending dues to private hospitals on april 7 but nothing has happened so farmany hospitals will close down as we dont have financial capacity to take care of expenses towards salaries utilities finances and rents we are also waiting for income tax returns which the finance minister had assured us most hospitals are providing secondary tertiary and quaternary health care and they cant the run the show after april he addedthe covid19 impact assessment for private health care sector done by ficci says hospitals are witnessing a drop in both domestic and interstate patient footfalls and elective surgeries after lockdown average occupancy in march was about 40 and it has reduced further in april private health care sector constitutes more than 60 of beds in india more than 80 of doctors in india work in private sector it is also among the countrys top 5 employerswhile government hospitals and doctors are busy handling covid19 patients general public and middle class has to rely on private hospitals early and impactful measures should be taken to save hospitals or many small hospitals will close down in next one month dr paltewar added