India has become the fifth worst coronavirus-hit country in the world after surpassing Spain on Saturday. As of today, the total number of confirmed cases in the country has jumped to 2,56,611, including 7,135 deaths, according to data on the Union Health Ministry website. Spain, which was a COVID-19 epicentre a few weeks ago, has 2,41,310 confirmed cases, which includes 27,135 deaths. The four countries that have more cases than India are the US (19,15,712), Brazil (6,72,846), Russia (4,67,673) and the UK (284,872).
The COVID-19 pandemic is a huge challenge for India, but it also presents an opportunity to speed up the health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat scheme, especially with a focus on primary health care, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus suggested during a press briefing in Geneva on Friday. He said it while responding to a question on the COVID-19 situation in India. Ghebreyesus acknowledged that there is a very strong commitment from the Indian government to speed up the implementation of Ayushman Bharat, but he said that focusing on primary healthcare and community engagement can “really turn the tide.”
Ghebreyesus added that using and speeding up the Ayushman Bharat scheme could actually help India fight this pandemic.
The purpose of Ayushman Bharat Scheme
Ayushman Bharat Yojana or Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) or National Health Protection Scheme is the Narendra Modi government’s flagship health insurance scheme launched in September 2018. Considered to be the world’s largest health insurance scheme, it aims to cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the number of people who have benefited from the scheme has crossed the one crore-mark. Under this scheme, the government had also initiated a programme to set up 1,50,000 health and wellness centres (HWCs) by 2022.
Ayushman Bharat scheme covers hospitalization costs for treatment of critical diseases, including COVID-19 (Coronavirus), at empanelled public and private hospitals in the country. It allows beneficiaries to avail cashless treatment and hospitalisation at empanelled hospitals.
Govt Plans To Expand The Scheme
In the union budget 2020, which was announced in February 1 this year, the government has allocated Rs 6,400 Crore for Ayushman Bharat scheme. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also announced an outlay of Rs 69,000 Cr ($9.6 Bn) towards healthcare, a nearly 10% increase from last year.
The government is also planning to expand the scheme by setting up more hospitals in the tier-II and III cities under the public-private-partnership (PPP) model. According to Sitharaman, the government will be using proceeds from taxing medical devices for setting up these hospitals.
In the first phase, the government plans to cover 112 aspirational districts that don’t have hospitals empanelled under Ayushman Bharat. Currently there are more than 20,000 empanelled hospitals under the scheme, according to Sitharaman.