Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday that the Centre's Ayushman Bharat Scheme is the...
Digital Desk: Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday that the Centre's Ayushman Bharat Scheme is the world's best health insurance scheme so far, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi deserves credit for conceptualising it.
"This is possibly the only health insurance scheme in the world that offers the option of seeking insurance cover even for a pre-existing disease, such as if today a person is detected having cancer, he can then go and get himself insured to receive financial support for treatment," Singh said.
Dr Jitendra Singh, speaking at the Economic Times Doctor's Day Conclave on the eve of Doctor's Day today, said that by implementing Ayushman Bharat, India has shifted from a sectoral and segmented approach to health service delivery to a holistic need-based healthcare service.
The Minister said that this is the only system in which people can register for pre-existing conditions. The minister informed that Jammu and Kashmir was the first UT to have full coverage of the health scheme regardless of economic factors, said a government release.
The Minister stated that the Ayushman Bharat Yojna provides eligible individuals with free treatment in the best hospitals for up to five lakh rupees. In response to questions regarding apparent inconsistencies in the plan's execution, he stated, "We are in the early stages of implementation, and the government is open to making appropriate changes in the scheme as required in due course." The Minister also emphasised that integrity is important in a large, diverse country like India and that this health insurance programme will gradually become a model for the rest of the world to follow.
Jitendra Singh stated that the pandemic has taught us the value of holistic healthcare and that even after the pandemic has gone, it will be in the best interests of humanity to set up an integrated medicinal approach for adequate treatment and prevention of various diseases. The Minister stated that during the COVID, the West began to look up to India in quest of immunity-building strategies taken from Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, Unani, Yoga, Naturopathy, and other oriental alternatives. However, he stated that even after the COVID phase is over, optimal integration and cooperation among multiple streams of medical care are the key to the successful management of various diseases and disorders that may not be completely amenable to treatment by any single stream of medicine or treatment given in silos.
He stated that when COVID-19 reached us, India notified us of the telemedicine practise guidelines in March 2020, and we did the same for AYUSH in April 2020. He stated that India could instantly notify these instructions because our groundwork had been completed and we were ready. "We must work together to ensure 'Digital Health for All,' which is a prerequisite for achieving 'Health for All," the Minister stated.
Dr. Jitendra Singh stated that it was Prime Minister Modi's foresight that he communicated the tremendous vision of 'Digital India' soon after taking office in 2014, much before COVID-19 struck the world.
Singh concluded that it was Prime Minister Modi, once again, who issued a call for Startup India and Standup India from the ramparts of the Red Fort in 2015, when there were only 350 or so startups operating in India, and that the country now ranks third in terms of Startups in the world, with around one lakh startups and 100 or so Unicorns, many of which are health and biotech startups.
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