GUWAHATI: Assam is taking the Atal Amrit Abhiyan closer to people, with the ambit of the health assurance scheme expanded to cover diseases under six more categories.
The move is in sync with the announcement made during the Budget speech 2019-20 to include other expensive critical care disease groups, particularly those requiring intensive or high dependency care.
The scheme provides cashless treatment and extensive coverage of critical care targeted at below poverty line (BPL) population and low income households whose annual income is Rs 5 lakh or less.
Addressing reporters here on Wednesday, state health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said the Cabinet on Monday had taken the decision to take the scheme forward to include Intensive Care Unit packages covering trauma, critical care pediatrics and pediatric surgery, Japanese encephalitis (JE) and acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) besides bone marrow transplantation.
As many as 438 types of diseases under six departments were covered since the launch of the scheme. The departments include cardiology, neurology, burn, cancer, nephrology and neo-natal.
“The expanded scheme will now cover children up to the age of 14 years for any critical surgery. The maximum coverage for bone marrow transplant (even without cancer) and for JE and AES cases will be Rs 2lakh per person,” Sarma said.
“We want to take the scheme closer to the people. So far, as many as 1.7crore people have enrolled under the scheme, while 60,000 people have directly benefitted from the cashless scheme at a cost of Rs 140crore. Till date, 27424 cancer patients, 20,263 kidney patients while 6400 patients suffering from cardio-vascular diseases have benefitted from the scheme,” he said.
The minister said that the expanded scheme will be effective in government hospitals from November 1, 2019 while it will be effective in private hospitals once the agreement is inked in a few weeks.
The existing Atal Amrit Abhiyan Society AAS will implement the expanded scheme under the same set of guidelines. Additional manpower if required will be engaged by the society for processing additional claims under the expanded scheme.
Sarma further said that the pressure on government hospitals has increased considerably after the launch of Atal Amri Abhiyan and Ayushman Bharat schemes.
However, private hospitals in the state are also sharing the load with 41 of them registered under Atal Amrit Abhiyan .
Mortality rate
The minister said that the mortality rate of patients in government hospitals of Assan has come down from 18 to 12 per cent in the past six years. “We are looking to bring the rate further to 6 per cent,” he said.