A report has been shared by India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley which reveals that about 6.85 lakh poor patients are treated under Ayushman Bharat scheme in 100 days. These patients have been provided free hospital treatment.

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In a statement, Jaitley, states that “As many as 6.85 lakh poor patients have been provided free hospital treatment in the first 100 days of the launch of the programme. On an average 5,000 claims are being settled every day since its rollout on September 23, 2018.”

“Once awareness of the scheme increases, It is anticipated that in the next few years, almost 1 crore plus families will benefit each year,” Jaitley said in a Facebook post entitled ‘100 Days of Ayushman Bharat‘.

The total number of hospitals that are covered under this scheme are both private hospitals and Government hospitals presently numbering 16,000 and increasing reliability. Whereas more than 50 percent of the implementing hospitals are from the private sector.

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Jaitley said in the first 100 days of this scheme, 6.85 lakh patients have been provided treatment in hospitals and about 5.1 lakh claims have availed of the scheme, for which payment has been released by the government.

In September 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the Ayushman Bharat under “Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana” that aims to provide a coverage about Rs 5 lakh per family annually, in other words benefiting more than 10.74 crore poor families or more than 50 crore people for tertiary and secondary care hospitalisation through health care providers.

Jaitley said Ayushman Bharat scheme act as a “game changer” in the healthcare field which approximately covers 40 percent of the country’s population that cannot afford to pay their medical bills.

In another statement, Jaitley states that “Many people from the weaker sections avoided hospital treatment in order to avoid the burden of an unbearable payment. Today 40 percent of India’s poorest are assured of a treatment in a hospital at the cost of public expenditure. Although government employees, armed forces personnel and some corporate employees have healthcare support facilities, 62.58 percent of the Indian population have to pay their healthcare bills themselves and most find it unaffordable.“

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