‘Ayushman Bharat is a Boon for the Country’: For the Motion

Abstract

Ayushman Bharat approved by the Indian government in March 2018, is an ambitious reform to the Indian health system to provide Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC) and to achieve Universal Health Coverage. The Ayushman Bharat with two components intends to provide a continuum of care services across the three-level of care, expanded service delivery through population enumeration and empanelment of Families at HWC and also expanded the range of preventive, promotive, curative, diagnostic, rehabilitative and palliative care services. There is sufficient evidence available that strengthening of primary healthcare is the most appropriate approach to achieve UHC. Investment on comprehensive primary healthcare system is a practical and affordable solution for India. The concept of Mid-Level Health Provider (MLHP) is newly introduced to improve Sub center and PHC resource utilization. Health and wellness centers with referral services provide preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative aspects with the inclusion of non-communicable disease and other important component will make the programme to deliver Comprehensive health care. With the availability of extensive potentially trainable human resources at comparatively low cost, the Health services of the programme are provided with the Human resource incentives. Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Scheme will be implanted in conjunctions with the existing state insurance scheme, will provide a cashless benefit for identified secondary/ tertiary treatments, in public/ empaneled private facilities all over India without any cap on family size and age, beneficiaries being identified on the basis of Socio-Economic Caste Survey (SECC) 2011. The Utilization of manpower under Ayushman Bharat is proved by successful engagement and potential usage of nearly 1 million ASHA under the National Health Mission (NHM). The programme provides an innovative initiative of building a highly impactful health model with low cost with the utilization of skilledworkforce. This review describes why Ayushman Bharat is a boon for the country.