Ayushman Bharat Diwas: A Day To Celebrate Health

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver." It was too late until India realized that it needed to revamp its health sector and bring about ancient healthcare systems that helped people during the days of yore. Let's see if India was successful in its mission or not.

Ayushman Bharat: A program to improve the healthcare sector of India; Image Source: IDFND.com

Healthcare in India is considered one of the most profitable sectors, both in revenue generation and employment. From hospitals, medical devices, outsourcing, and clinical trials to telemedicine, medical equipment, medical tourism, and health insurance, all contribute equally to India's health sector. According to recent statistics, the healthcare industry in India is predicted to reach US$ 372 billion by 2022, driven by rising income, improved health awareness, lifestyle illnesses, and more insurance coverage.

While all this information might sound quite fancy and progressive, the ground reality is something else. Though India is trying hard to improve this ugly reality by taking baby steps, one at a time, there are still a lot of things that need to be managed to give the health sector a boost.

The improvements that we see today are not sudden. The journey of bringing in a health policy that would, later on, become the world's most extensive free healthcare system started from a report. Yes, you heard it right. A report gave India a new inspiration to start working hard on its healthcare policies. It was the year 2017 when a report called Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) was released.

Made in collaboration with over 3600 researchers from 145 countries, it is a systematic regional and worldwide disease burden research program that evaluates death and disability from critical illnesses, injuries, and comorbidities. You must be thinking what was so shocking in this report that it compelled a country as large as India to revamp its health policies altogether. Let's find out.

The GBD report had complete detail about significant diseases and risk factors for every state of India, starting from 1990 to 2016. It gave the Indian government a chance to improve the primary healthcare problems and overcome their challenges. They had a clear idea about the target areas they had to work on. Later on, in 2018, the Indian government presented statistics.

While there were a lot of healthcare programs already employed at the local, state, and national levels, a lot of improvement was to be done. More than six crores of Indians were pushed below the poverty line due to excessive medical expenses that they couldn't afford.

Keeping all of this in mind, the Indian government announced the Ayushman Bharat Yojana in February 2018 together with the 2018 Union Budget. Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the crowd on the eve of Independence Day that India's national health program would be ready by September 25, 2018, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya's birthday, who was an Indian politician, proponent of Hindutva ideology espoused by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and leader of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of Bharatiya Janata Party. Initially, the program required an Aadhaar card to access, but subsequent methods emerged that permitted access without one.

With an ambitious mindset, this program went on to change people's lives, one at a time. The program was first launched on September 23, 2018, at Ranchi, Jharkhand. By December 26, 2020, this program was extended to the union territories of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh.

Aiming to benefit 50 crore beneficiaries across the country, this program has unique features that make it different from other health schemes. Families living below the poverty line can receive a healthcare cover of Rs. 5 lakh. All the families listed in the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) database are entitled to the benefits of this program.

Though all the family members are included in this program, priority is given to girls, women, and senior citizens. All diseases, including secondary ones like cardiologists and urologists and tertiary ones like cancer and cardiac surgery, are covered. To remove the burden of excess expenses on healthcare, all medical treatment has been made cashless. A person enrolled in this program can go to any government hospital in India to avail of cashless medical facilities.

Along with the benefits of this program come shortfalls. When Ayushman Bharat Yojana was introduced, several questions were raised regarding how it could be merged with other healthcare programs like NITI Aayog. Starting with infrastructure that must be developed to be part of a modern national system would be difficult to establish a federal health care program.

While the Ayushman Bharat Yojana aims to deliver good healthcare, India still has several fundamental healthcare difficulties, such as a shortage of physicians, increased infectious illness cases, and a government budget with a comparably low central government expenditure on health care. Some of the issues are outside the purview of the Health Ministry, such as urban development or transportation. Whereas many public hospitals have enrolled, many private commercial hospitals have not. Even with state support, private hospitals say that they'd be unable to provide their specialized services at the government's cheap cost.

Private hospitals have abused the Ayushman Bharat system by submitting fraudulent medical bills. Under the Scheme, operations were claimed to have been conducted on people discharged a long time ago. For example, dialysis was reported to have been performed in hospitals that did not have a kidney transplant facility.

An initial study of high-value claims under PMJAY has indicated that a limited number of districts and hospitals account for a large percentage of them and some evidence of an anti-women bias, with male patients receiving more excellent coverage. Despite all efforts to prevent wrongdoing, the potential of unscrupulous private businesses profiting from system gaming is undoubtedly present in AB-PMJAY.

With all the challenges like a burden on its shoulders, the Ayushman Bharat Yojana continues to serve the country's people with all its might. While all these challenges cannot be overcome in a single night, we can surely try and take baby steps towards improving this thoughtful program so that it continues to spread light in the lives of millions of disadvantaged people.

To honour this noble program and promote healthcare services among people below the poverty line, India commemorates Ayushman Bharat Diwas every year on April 30. Let's take a pledge on this Ayushman Bharat Diwas to improve India's healthcare sector and bring the deserving beneficiaries to the program.