Truly golden
Providing healthcare facilities for the poor have been always a point of discussion in a place like Jammu and Kashmir. The region has a major chunk of population that cannot afford to spend money on availing healthcare facilities. People living in cities as well as those living in far off areas have been demanding for better and affordable healthcare facilities, which have though been eluding them.
Healthcare facilities for the common man have been proving to be a nightmare. Even in government run hospitals people have to cough up money for all the facilities that are provided to them.
The inpatients in all the state run hospitals are made to pay for every facility that is provided to them. This includes diagnostics as well as other surgical goods and medicines that are required by the patients.
Every now and then the patients were told to get the medicines prescribed for the inpatients from the open market as hospitals are most of the time running short on medical supplies.
In such a scenario where shall a person put his trust and faith, especially those who do not have the money to spend in hospitals that are managed by the government itself. This question has hopefully got an answer in the form of the ‘golden cards’ scheme under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.
Ayushman Bharat scheme provides an annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family. This scheme has been announced by the Union government to provide relief to the lower strata of the society whose income levels are not that satisfactory to avail healthcare facilities even in government run hospitals.
There are 6.30 lakh poor and vulnerable families entitled for health cover under the Ayushman Bharat scheme in Jammu and Kashmir- as per the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC).
Under the scheme, patients can get free treatment in the empanelled government or private hospitals. As many as 127 government and private hospitals are empanelled under the scheme in the UTs of JK and Ladakh.
But as of now the benefits are not percolating down the line to its end beneficiaries. This is because the people have been complaining of non-compliance by officials at various healthcare facilities.
It is ironic that the government had set up a target of reaching out to the population of 6.30 lakh eligible persons in Jammu and Kashmir by August 31 last year, but the scheme it seems will have to go through lot of roadblocks so that it can be made fully vibrant.
The initial response and the facility people enjoyed due to the scheme were quite impressive but somewhere down the line the mechanism witnessed some road blocks which need to be taken care of.
The scheme has proven to be a game changer in the healthcare sector as the most down trodden people could imagine covering their healthcare expenses with ease.
KV Network
