New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party’s national spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar took a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, claiming that many of the empanelled hospitals under the central government’s health scheme, Ayushman Bharat “exist only on paper.”
“Prime Minister Modi lied again yesterday during a program. For AAP, health is an important issue. Ayushman Bharat is such that CAG has also exposed the scam related to it. Many of the impanelled hospitals of Ayushman Bharat exist only on paper,” she said during a press conference.
“Around 26,000 hospitals have been impanelled, in which around 7,000 are only on paper, whereas in 4,000 hospitals there has not been any admissions,” the spokesperson added.
Notably, the Ayushman Bharat Yojna is a scheme which aims to procure free access to health insurance coverage for families with low incomes. The scheme was launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
She further showed a letter purported to be written by Indian Medical Association of Haryana, saying that the government had not paid the dues of Ayushman Bharat, because of which treatment for patients under the schemes had stopped.
“Moreover, the hospitals which admitted poor people, they gave up and stopped the admissions due to non-payment. The Indian Medical Association of Haryana had written a letter saying that now patients will not be treated under Ayushman Bharat because the pending payment has not been made, Modi government itself had cut its budget,” she added.
The AAP spokesperson also claimed that around 50 pc of patients in hospitals under the Delhi government are from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
“Around 50 per cent of people under Delhi government come from these two states, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. If Ayushman Bharat is such a good scheme then why do people from Haryana and UP come to Delhi for treatment? However, we welcome them because health is the most important issue for us.”
Additionally, she also claimed the Delhi’s health model is better than Ayushman Bharat.
She said, “You will be eligible under Ayushman Bharat only if your income is less than ten thousand rupees per month but there is no such compulsion in Delhi. In Ayushman Bharat, insurance of five lakhs is available for the entire family but in Delhi, no matter how expensive the treatment is, the Delhi government provides it for free. In the last eight years, 7.5 crore people have got treatment in Mohalla Clinic OPD.”