State’s village health councils may get national recognition

SHILLONG, May 23: Impressed with Meghalaya’s model of village health councils, the National Health Authority (NHA) has vouched for implementation of the same in other states of the country.
NHA is the apex body responsible for implementing India’s flagship public health insurance/assurance scheme called “Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana” and has been entrusted with the role of designing strategy, building technological infrastructure and implementation of “National Digital Health Mission” to create a National Digital Health Eco-system.
Speaking to media persons here during the North East regional review meeting, CEO of National Health Authority, Dr Ram Sewak Sharma said that these village health councils consist of frontline workers who tackle any kind of emergency at the village level.
“This concept is required for any health delivery system to succeed. Unless it is connected to the grassroots, things will not work,” Dr Sharma observed, adding that they were in negotiation with seven states to implement the idea of constitution of village health councils and would propose the same in other states as well.
The review meeting took stock of two schemes – Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission.
Dr Sharma expressed satisfaction with the way the Northeastern states have been implementing the schemes.
The purpose of the conference was to collate ideas which have succeeded at the state level and bring it to the Government of India to be shared among other states.
The statistics which Meghalaya presented during the review indicated that the state is ensuring that nobody is denied treatment.
Principal Secretary of Health, Sampath Kumar said that claims worth over Rs 290 crore have been settled under Megha Health Insurance Scheme covering over four lakh households in the state.