Pointing out “huge gaps” in the Bhamashah Swasthya Beema Yojana launched for poor families in December last year, a campaign of public health groups has called upon the Rajasthan government to carry out modifications in the scheme to ensure access of the poorest to private hospitals.
The Rajasthan chapter of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA) has petitioned the State government through the Collectors of 25 districts while affirming that poor people were deprived of timely medical assistance despite the health insurance scheme. When the scheme was introduced, it was estimated that 67 per cent of the State's population would be covered by it.
Chhaya Pachauli of the JSA said here on Tuesday that patients who who wished to seek the scheme's benefit had to produce Bhamashah card seeded with the National Food Security Act eligibility and personal identification documents. “A large number of eligible patients could not get benefit as they could not produce the required documents,” she said.
A statement from the JSA suggested that all patients who orally declare their eligibility should be accepted and the staff should later collect documents and verify eligibility as their responsibility.
Besides, all the empanelled hospitals are listed for a limited number of treatment packages. “This makes it extremely difficult for a patient who is critically ill to reach where he would get treatment for the illnesses,” said the JSA.
Expressing concern over the time lost in transport from one facility to another, at times costing lives, the JSA suggested that once a patient has reported to an empanelled hospital, it should be the hospital's duty to transport him to the appropriate hospital without any out-of-pocket expenses of the patient.
Questioning the inclusion of government hospitals under the Bhamashah Yojana, Ms. Pachauli said this had increased work load of the hospital staff with no tangible results.
