February 2, 2019
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has congratulated the Indian government for the successful completion of the first 100 days of the healthcare scheme Ayushman Bharat from its launch. The response from Gates came after Union Health Minister JP Nadda wrote on Twitter that 6,85,000 beneficiaries have availed free health care in just first 100 days of the scheme and the number is rising rapidly.
World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on 3 January had praised Prime Minister Modi and the health minister for leadership which helped around seven lakh people avail themselves of benefits of the healthcare scheme.
The scheme, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Ranchi in Jharkhand on 23 September, aims to provide healthcare cover of Rs five lakh per family annually to more than 10.74 crore poor families or 50 crore people for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation, through a network of empanelled health care providers. The world’s largest ambitious healthcare scheme, it claims to cover medical and hospitalisation expenses for almost all secondary care and most tertiary care procedures. It has defined 1,350 medical packages covering surgery, medical and daycare treatments including medicines, diagnostics and transport.