Punjab Govt considering to extend Ayushman Bharat scheme to all residents

| | Chandigarh/SAS Nagar
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Punjab Govt considering to extend Ayushman Bharat scheme to all residents

Thursday, 12 December 2019 | PNS | Chandigarh/SAS Nagar

Punjab Government is working on a proposal to extend the benefit of Ayushman Bharat-Sarbat Sehat Bima Yojna (AB-SSBY) to all the residents across the state and the Government will soon bring remaining families in the ambit of this pro-people initiative.

Informing this, the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Wednesday said that with the Government’s decision to bring all the residents under Ayushman Bharat, Punjab will become one of the few states in the country wherein everyone will have access to free treatment.

Sidhu, highlighting the achievements of AB-SSBY, said that the State Government has, so far, treated more than 82,150 patients under the scheme at a cost of Rs 90.43 crore.

“Around 38.55 lakh e-cards have been generated to extend the benefits of this ambitious health insurance scheme to the beneficiaries and the process is still on,” he said.

The Minister said that the SSBY is running successfully ever since it was launched by the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on August 20 this year, and his visionary approach has made it possible for the people of Punjab to derive the advantage of quality healthcare services without any expenses.

“The State Government has decided to hire its own agency to accelerate the process of generating e-cards in the State and the tender to depute the agency will be floated soon,” he said.

The Minister stated that 639 hospitals have been empanelled under SSBY to provide secondary as well as tertiary healthcare services at the doorstep of the beneficiaries and the work to add more such hospitals is in progress.

“Under the tertiary care services, besides 1291 knee and hip replacements and 1474 Cardiac Surgeries, 1145 cancer patients have already been treated,” he said.

Sidhu said that the inclusion of other family members of the beneficiaries is underway and they could avail the services by visiting any of the empanelled hospitals or 22 district kiosks set up at the District Hospitals.

The Minister added that the State Government has also constituted the ‘State Anti Fraud Unit’ to address complaints of beneficiaries and to investigate frauds report under the scheme. Out of 1502 complaints registered on 104 helpline, 1220 complaints had been disposed of so far.

“Special teams constituted under the Deputy Medical Commissioner to immediately redress the grievances at the district level. If in any case, empanelled hospital would deny to provide benefit of insurance scheme, stern action would be taken against the erring establishment,” he said.

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