Govt extends Rs 50 lakh insurance scheme for healthcare providers till September

While the number of Covid-19 cases in the country has seen a spike, the government has decided to extended the Rs 50 lakh insurance scheme for about 22 lakh healthcare providers for another three months till September.

The scheme implemented by New India Assurance was slated to end on June 30, as per the announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as part of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan package in March.

The scheme is funded through the National Disaster Response Fund, operated by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, sanitation workers, and a few others working in hospitals under the central and state governments will be covered under the insurance scheme. While announcing the scheme, the Finance Minister had said, safai karamcharis, ward-boys, nurses, ASHA workers, paramedics, technicians, doctors and specialists, and other health workers would be covered by the special insurance scheme.

While announcing the PM Garib Kalyan package, FM Sitharaman had said that “Any health professional, who while treating COVID-19 patients, meet with some accident, then he/she would be compensated with an amount of Rs 50 lakh under the scheme.”

Further, according to the health ministry, this insurance also covers private health providers those who are engaged by private health care institutions/organisation through an agency and were deployed or drafted for care and may have come in direct contact of the COVID-19 patient.

In an official statement, the govt has said that insurance scheme for health workers in government hospitals and healthcare centres operationalised with effect from March 30, 2020, has been further extended till September 2020. – Times Now News