‘Need tighter Ayushman Bharat norms for hospitals’: Darshan Singh Choudhary
BJP MP Darshan Singh Choudhary talks to Deeptiman Tiwary regarding issues patients face while availing of ayushman bharat
Darshan Singh Choudhary (Sansad TV/ANI Video Grab) You raised issues with the Ayushman Bharat scheme. What are these?
Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, the world’s biggest health welfare scheme is running in India today. But due to issues in implementation, some problems have arisen. Once a patient is admitted, all his money vanishes but full treatment does not happen. At times, on the pretext of time limitations, scheme benefits are not passed on to the patient. Sometimes, hospitals pretend that such and such illness is not covered. There are so many issues which cause a lot of trouble to Ayushman card holding patients. PM’s objective was to provide easy treatment to the poor.
What are the reasons behind the scheme faltering?
The key reason is monopoly of private hospitals. They either pretend that such and such illness is not covered… then pressure has to be put on them… They take money from patients as well as the government. The scheme needs to be implemented with transparency.
Some people criticise the scheme as designed to benefit private hospitals. They say the government should have instead spent that money on sprucing up government hospitals.
We have seen significance of government hospitals during pandemic. Modernising government hospitals is government’s responsibility and it is also doing it. But there is private healthcare also. It is commendable that government thought those who have faith in private healthcare must be able to access it. But government must fix responsibility for proper monitoring of private healthcare.
What steps must the government take?
There should be a committee at the local level that should include local people, administrative officers and public representatives. It can also include Ayushman beneficiaries. The committee should monitor the implementation of the scheme.
There should be clarity on the nature of diseases included in the scheme. Many times patients face harassment over various names of a disease. There should be proper guidelines… Hospitals must be asked to display it prominently.
The administration must also crack down on middlemen.
Do you think there should be punitive measures against faltering hospitals?
There should be a provision for punishment to hospitals refusing patients under the scheme. Scheme’s provisions need to be made tighter for hospitals.
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