Need to expand public, private healthcare: Jaitley

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 12

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today underscored the need for expanding public and private healthcare to small towns and rural areas across India. 

He was here at the 49th Foundation Day of Dr Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS.

He said money not utilised by the states and the Centre over the years would now be used for providing healthcare and insurance to senior citizens belonging to the Below Poverty Line (BPL) and dialysis treatment would be easily accessible across the “geographical length and breadth of the country”.

“We have now reached a stage in the country where healthcare has to enter the next stage. In terms of public and private medical institutions, we appear to be going at a reasonable pace. Most of the centres are in the urban areas. But in the next few years, the expanse will spread. Even though the concentration in metros and cities is reasonable, but smaller towns around us, the healthcare in terms of public and private is still quite weak,” said Jaitley. 

He said, “Last weekend, I was in Vrindavan, I had gone for a political convention. One of the orthopaedic surgeons told me the inadequacies in public and private healthcare. It is our responsibility to make sure that the geographical spread improves.”

He said two initiatives regarding healthcare were taken this year. 

“We will plan a health scheme in which insurance cover for a family will be upto Rs 1 lakh per hospital treatment. This applies to 1/3rd of the bottom layer of Indian society. So all people below the poverty line category and some above it will be covered in the scheme,” he said.

He said last year he had discovered various government schemes in which people contribute money and for almost the past decade had not claimed it. 

“I have passed an act of Parliament that this money will now be acquired by the government and used for health care of senior citizens of the BPL category,” he said. 

He said the senior citizens of the “bottom rung of 1/3rd of the Indian society” receive an additional cover of Rs 40,000 a year. So it was a case in which the government is not taking money from its own pocket.