A sum of Rs.150 crore has been allotted initially against newly-formulated Chief Minister's Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme, Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam announced in the Assembly on Thursday.
The old insurance scheme of the DMK regime was terminated, but to benefit patients in the bridge period between suspending the old scheme and launching the new one, a sum of Rs.100 crore was separately allocated, Finance Secretary K. Shanmugam said in his post budget briefing.
The government will focus on improvement of primary health care facilities in urban areas. The 60 centres already sanctioned under the National Rural Health Mission, will be shifted under the administrative and technical control of the Directorate of Public Health. Further, the Finance Minister announced that Urban Primary Health Care centres will be set up in 75 more small urban towns. A super-speciality centre, at a cost of Rs.100 crore, would be set up in Annal Gandhi Government Hospital, Tiruchi.
Additionally, infrastructure and equipment upgradation has been planned for district hospitals and poison treatment centres at a cost of Rs.55 crore, under the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project. Also, under public-private partnership agreements, diagnostic facilities at the major hospitals will be improved, and state-of-the-art computer aided laboratories established in all districts in a phased manner. A ‘Hospital on Wheels' scheme will be launched to provide door-to-door health care services far-flung areas to begin with. Sanitary napkins will be provided free of cost to rural girls through the ICDS network and village health nurses. A sum of Rs.46 crore has been provided for this.
Emergency transportation provided through the 108 ambulance service will further be extended to offering inter-facility transfer for all emergencies. Additionally, special vehicles will be put into service in tribal and hilly areas, and one vehicle will be provided per district for transporting new born babies.
Keywords: health insurance scheme, Tamil Nadu budget
Good schemes by the Government will reach its citizen only if they are monitored by a good/uncorrupted team of experts/officials. Its a well known fact that most of the hospitals (doctors nurses ward boys etc..)in Tamilnadu treat the patient based on the money in the patients' pocket. So, government helps the owner of the nursing homes by giving people's money for nothing. Instead, government should concentrate on improving the quality and infrastructure of the governments hospitals and help poor people to get treated well even though the government hospital workers are highly corrupted people (not all but most of them). This insurance scheme should be monitored strictly by the government, otherwise it is good for nothing.
What are all the diseases covered under tamil nadu government upcoming insurance scheme?
Very happy to note that the government is working on health with mobile health services the plan and idea is very good. Govt has to plan for a good quality service from the government hospitals, where as of now, top doctors would like to get acquainted with corporate hospitals. Now the scenario should be that with good infrastructure and quality customer care from government hospitals, medical tourism should be introduced in Government hospital. When the private hospitals can earn, why not govt hospitals. Hope the dream comes true. The first govt hospital to introduce medical tourism par with international standard.
Health Care is very essential and important and good to know that the government is working on this sector. But the service provided through government can never equal of good quality and it will be better, if this service can reach people in other ways ...
Nice to know that the government is spending huge amounts of money on health.While this a beginning where the government uses the services of private sector to cover up for it's lacunae in terms of expertise and infrastructure, the ultimate goal must be to provide quality health care in the government hospitals itself because unlike other sectors like telecom or airways health is one field where accessibility to all because a troublesome issue when one talks about the private sector. Moreover a lot of emphasis needs to be placed on preventive medicine which is cheap, effective and adds a lot of value to quality of life.
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