Mumbai: Since the launch of Ayushman Bharat Yojana (or Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana), around 10.8 lakh people took benefits worth Rs 1,456 crore. In these, around 4,000 people have enjoyed the portability feature of this scheme. The portability feature allows beneficiaries of the scheme to access the service from any part of the country. It is estimated that patients from Madhya Pradesh have availed medical services in Gujarat, under this scheme. Malti Jaswal, Consultant, World Bank, who was in Mumbai for a CII conference, said, “Portability feature is one of the many features that give the scheme the importance.”
Other patients from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, etc have also availed services in other states. When asked if the portability feature will be smooth if there is a large influx of people availing services from other states, Jaswal said, “The back-end can support the system. That is the point of the scheme. It can allow the patient to utilise the scheme from anywhere in the country.”
Of the Rs 1,456 crore spent on 10.8 lakh patients, around 77 per cent is on tertiary specialities like medical oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, urology, and radiation oncology. It is also estimated that 65 per cent of the treatment took place in private hospitals. Under the scheme, primary health centres from rural areas would be converted to health and wellness centres (HWC) which would be well equipped for universally screening of common non communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and three common cancers. “The idea is set up 150, 000 HWC by December 2022,” said Jaswal.
Jaswal said that in the first year, the scheme is expected to generate a demand for 43,000 additional hospital beds and 5,000 more doctors. “The scheme is believed to result in 1.7 crore hospitalisations in the first year. Out of the total spending almost 40 per cent or Rs 5,260 crore would go to the public sector hospitals and Rs 7, 250 crore or 60 per cent would go to the private sector,” Jaswal said.
