Validity of HIMCARE cards extended

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, December 3

The state government today extended the validity of the Mukhyamantri Health Care Scheme, also known as HIMCARE, which provides free health care up to Rs 5 lakh to residents of Himachal Pradesh without any criteria of income.

The HIMCARE cards of many beneficiaries had expired in March and they could not get these renewed due to the pandemic. Such persons were deprived of the benefits for the past eight months. Padmawati (60), who is a widow and a resident of Rajpur Tanda village, was also one of them.

The Tribune had highlighted the plight of Padmawati three days ago in these columns. A heart patient, she had to return from the TMC without treatment since she had no money to meet the cost of two coronary stents and other medicines, costing over Rs 2 lakh. Her HIMCARE card had also expired and she was not in a position to pay for her angioplasty.

After the news was published, the state government swung into action and issued a notification on Friday to extend the validity of all HIMCARE cards till November 30, 2022, almost by a year so that patients like Padmawati could get immediate medical treatment and lives of such patients are saved.

It is learnt that after going through the news item, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur convened a meeting of the Health Department officials at Shimla and directed them to extend the validity of HIMCARE cards with immediate effect.