9 Admissions A Minute, Ayushman Bharat Completes 50 Lakh Treatments

The Modi government’s flagship programme, Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), touted as the world’s largest government-funded healthcare programme, on Monday crossed the 50 lakh treatment mark.

In just over a year later, Ayushman Bharat has completed 50 lakh hospital admissions. According to an official statement, there were 9 hospital admissions every minute across India in the first year.

Under the government-funded health assurance scheme, free secondary and tertiary treatment worth Rs 7,901 crore has been carried out in the 32 states and UTs implementing the scheme.

As per the National Health Authority (NHA) data, more than 60 per cent of the amount spent has been on tertiary care. Segments like cardiology, orthopaedics, radiation, oncology, cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, and urology have emerged as the top tertiary specialities.

Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh have emerged as the top-performing states under the scheme.

Lauding the progress of the scheme, Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health & Family Welfare said “The Ayushman Bharat family is growing by leaps and bounds. In just over one year, under PM-JAY more than 50 lakh treatments have been availed by beneficiaries across the country. But, this is just the beginning for this path-breaking scheme.”

Speaking on the occasion, NHA CEO Indu Bhushan said: “50 lakh hospital treatments is a significant milestone for PM-JAY, but there is a long journey ahead. The scheme will continue to focus on reducing catastrophic out-of-pocket health expenditure, improving access to quality health care and meeting the unmet need of the population for hospitalisation care, so that we move towards the vision of Universal Health Coverage.”

PM-JAY is a partnership of public and private sector health systems. To date, 18,486 hospitals have been empanelled across India. In the first year, 53 per cent of the empanelled hospitals were private, especially multi-specialty hospitals.

The aim of PM-JAY is to bring quality healthcare to more than 50 crore poor and vulnerable Indians across the country. The scheme gives annual healthcare benefits of up to Rs 5 lakh for every entitled family and provides cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service. – Business Times