From Our Special Correspondent
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 5lakh 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 2 lakh per person,” Sarma said.
“We want to take the scheme closer to the people. So far, as many as 1.7 crore 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.
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.