India prepared to deal with Covid: Scindia
India is fully prepared to deal with the coronavirus, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Friday, amid concerns over rising infections in several countries, particularly China.
India is fully prepared to deal with the coronavirus, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Friday, amid concerns over rising infections in several countries, particularly China.
The civil aviation minister was speaking to reporters here when he also listed the initiatives taken by the Narendra Modi government to tackle the pandemic since its outbreak in 2020, and to improve the overall health care system in the last eight years.
“Country is fully prepared to deal with the coronavirus situation,” the civil aviation minister said.
At least 2,200 million doses of vaccines have been administered till Monday, he added.
The minister also said a high-level meeting was chaired by Modi on Thursday to review the Covid situation in the country.
Scindia said the focus of the government under Modi’s leadership has been to transform healthcare into “holistic healthcare”.
“The pillars of the government’s healthcare programmes are accessibility, affordability, assured quality and digital delivery. Following the PM’s vision of ‘One Nation One Health’, we collectively handled the Covid-19 situation,” he said.
Under the Modi government, medicines have become more affordable and the out-of-pocket expenditure for healthcare has come down, the minister said. “The share of out-of-pocket health expenditure as a percentage of total health expenditure has declined from 64.2% in 2013-14 to 48.2% in 2018-19,” he told reporters.
Scindia said the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna is the world’s largest health insurance scheme fully financed by the government.
“PM-JAY is covering around 10.74 crore (107.4 million) poor and vulnerable families for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. As many as 17.6 crore (176 million) Ayushman Cards have been generated, and over 28,800 public and private hospitals have been empanelled,” he said.
Highlighting the Modi government’s achievements in the health sector, Scindia said: “There were less than 400 medical colleges in the country before 2014 while more than 200 new medical colleges have been built in the country in the last eight years. The Government of India has given a boost to medical education to ensure that it is within reach of everyone. There were only seven AIIMS which were providing health services before 2014. Under the Central Sector Scheme for setting up of new AIIMS, 22 AIIMS have been approved.”
Scindia said that due to use of technology, a person living in a remote village is also able to get initial consultation from doctors in cities.
“The National Telemedicine Service – eSanjeevani – has used ICT (information and communication technology) to remotely enable diagnosis, treatment, and management of diseases. Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission has been launched to develop a robust digital technology backbone to support India’s integrated digital health infrastructure,” he said.