Prevent Future Poverty - urgent need for expansion of Ayushman Bharat

Government of India enrolled Prime-Minister Jan Arogya Yojana “Ayushman Bharat” with much enthusiasm and hoping to take care of India’s rural and urban poor. This Yojana will benefit the poor and estimated beneficiary number is 500 million (1). It ensures ₹ 5,00,000 per family per year. Ayushman hospitals are also registered for paperless and seamless benefits are intended for the clientele. The scheme was lauded by national and international experts. In coming time, around 10 core people will benefit from this Yojana (scheme). For poor, the guilt feeling will be vanished and family will be looked after by nation, by taxpayers money. Cancer care has been included in this scheme. 

Out of pocket expenditure in India is a neglected cause of poverty. Study by Selvaraj and Farooqui, published in BMJ estimated that in 2011-2012, 38 million people were pushed to below poverty line because of health expenditure on treatment of cancer, coronary heart diseases, mental disorders and genitourinary diseases (2). Cancer has overcome cardiovascular diseases as the most common cause of death in higher income countries (3). Similar, trend will emerge in next two decades in India, further making affordability and accessibility as a major health concern for people and policy makers.

Whenever natural calamity like earthquake, floods and tsunamis hits nation, many hands are opened up and government agencies also provide the relief in terms of monetary help. I feel, cancer diagnosis or detection of it in family is like a natural unexpected calamity. 

For example, a clerk of age 42 years, works in private school earns around ₹ 15,000/month with dependent two children and parents, wife does a household work and adds around ₹ 5000/month to family’s income gets detected with a cancer. He does not have Ayushman Bharat card. How will he manage? What this man did wrong??? Being a common man, not being too poor to avail government facilities. Who will speak for these people?

While Ayushman Bharat will take of poor, what about these future poor? These people are the productive workforce of the nation and society, with lot of hopes and dreams for the future.

There is an urgent need to take care of these people. Public-Government-Insurance trio can solve the problem of this aspiring group of the society. They can be protected from poverty by mutual understanding and participation. 

Jai Hind

by Amol Patel 

01.10.2019

References

1.         Chatterjee P. India launches Ayushman Bharat’s secondary care component. The Lancet. 2018 Sep 22;392(10152):997.

2.         Selvaraj S, Farooqui HH, Karan A. Quantifying the financial burden of households’ out-of-pocket payments on medicines in India: a repeated cross-sectional analysis of National Sample Survey data, 1994–2014. BMJ Open. 2018 May 1;8(5):e018020.

3.         Dagenais GR, Leong DP, Rangarajan S, Lanas F, Lopez-Jaramillo P, Gupta R, et al. Variations in common diseases, hospital admissions, and deaths in middle-aged adults in 21 countries from five continents (PURE): a prospective cohort study. The Lancet [Internet]. 2019 Sep 3 [cited 2019 Sep 30];0(0). Available from: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32007-0/abstract