Dr Harsh Vardhan maintains that Ayushman Bharat will continue to be a trailblazer with an all-encompassing humanitarian approach

In a push to make all 53 crore beneficiaries of ‘Ayushman Bharat’ avail Covid-19 related treatments free of cost, the government has expanded testing coverage and other issues connected with medical care of coronavirus afflicted patients. This was informed by Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Thursday while inaugurating the first edition of Arogya Dhara, a series of webinars created for discussion on issues linked with public health.

“Providing 1 crore treatments to patients from the country’s poorest households since its launch less than two years agois a milestone achievement for Ayushman Bharat PMJAY scheme. These treatments worth Rs 13,412 crore have been provided through a growing network of 21,565 public and private empanelled hospitals,” he said, adding that Ayushman Bharat will continue be a trailblazer with an all-encompassing humanitarian approach, to deal with various health-related challenges that will confront us in the months and years ahead,” he said.

He said “Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, is the flagship health assurance scheme of the central government, since its launch in 2018.

It is providing affordable healthcare in the form of tertiary hospital treatment to poor and vulnerable Indians through a health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year. Its aim is to ensure financial risk protection to more than 10.74 crore poorest, most vulnerable families in the country and is a step forward towards achievement of Universal Health Coverage in India.”

The Union Minister also launched a “Hospital Ranking Dashboard” which is a significant step to rank empanelled hospitals on the basis of beneficiaries’ feedback. The ranking will help NHA to take evidence based decision making for enhancing the quality measures and indicators of healthcare delivery across all empanelled facilities to further improve the beneficiaries experience.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan also released a “Special edition of the AB-PMJAY beneficiary e-card” exhibiting the milestone of 1 crore hospital admissions. Apart from the above, “Hindi version of the Ayushman Bharat PMJAY website” was also launched which shall enable to effectively connect with the masses and to empower them with access to right information through a user-friendly medium.

In his address, Ashwini Kumar Choubey said that MoHFW and NHA have been consistently developing, sharing, revising all testing, treatment, hospital and related guidelines, insights and information to its beneficiaries, which is of great help in dispelling rumours and myths surrounding COVID-19.

Dr. Vinod Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog stated that since its launch in 2018, AB-PMJAY is providing affordable healthcare in the form of tertiary hospital treatment to poor and vulnerable Indians.

The aim of PMJAY is to ensure financial risk protection to more than 10 crore poorest, most vulnerable families in the country and move step forward towards achievement of Universal Health Coverage in India.

NHA’s Indu Bhushan stated that his organization has utilised this period to leverage its IT systems, expertise and network of private sector stakeholders to support the Indian government’s preparedness and response in the form of managing the national COVID-19 helpline 1075 to conducting thousands of outbound calls to COVID positive patients and their families.