Kolkata, May 11 -- Erstwhile Trinamool Congress (TMC) government's flagship health scheme, 'Swasthya Sathi', officially remains operational, but after some private hospitals across the state started restricting or refusing Swasthya Sathi admissions due to concerns over non-reimbursement or future policy changes.
This has triggered uncertainty among the beneficiaries. Though CM Suvendu Adhikari on Monday stated that the first Cabinet cleared the Central government's health scheme 'Ayushman Bharat' and no social schemes introduced by the previous governments would stop, there is still a lack of clarity as to how 'Swasthya Sathi' will be implemented.
According to sources, many private hospitals were refusing 'Swasthya Sathi' due to anticipated changes in the state's healthcare policies and potential integration with Ayushman Bharat. Only a handful of them were accepting the 'Swasthya Sathi' while many others were limiting admissions.
CM Adhikari on Monday said that as his Cabinet has given the necessary clearance for 'Ayushman Bharat', the state health department officials from now on will keep in touch with their counterparts in the Union Health Ministry to implement the scheme. But there is no proper clarity whether the 'Ayushman Bharat' and 'Swasthya Sathi' would run parallelly.
TMC government had claimed more 2.45 crore families had been brought under the ambit of 'Swasthya Sathi', which consists 74.5% of the total population of the state. It had claimed that over 8.51 crore people were secured under the scheme and more than 2,900 hospitals and
nursing homes were empaneled, enabling beneficiaries to avail cashless treatment across the state. Swasthya Sathi provides up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care.
Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), a component of the Centre's broader Ayushman Bharat initiative, is fully funded by the Central and state governments and is implemented through a network of empanelled government and private hospitals across India.
Any individual listed as a beneficiary in the Socio-Economic-Caste Census 2011 data is eligible. Under the urban households ragpickers, beggars, and domestic workers, street vendors, hawkers, cobblers, construction, sanitation workers, plumbers,
labourers, welders, painters, coolies, security guards etc are eligible. Under rural households, families residing in single-room kutcha houses, households without any adult member between 16 and 59 years of age, SC/ST households, households which have only female members, households with disabled members, landless families who rely on manual income through daily labour are also eligible.
All individuals aged 70 years and above living in rural as well as urban areas are also covered.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.