Swasthya Sathi: State spends over `380 cr in 2 months, `1,773 cr so far

Kolkata: The state government has spent more than Rs 380 crore in the past two months after the Swasthya Sathi scheme was launched in a massive scale with the entire population of the state being brought under the scheme.

The state government has so far carried out a total expense of around Rs 1,773 crore for the treatment of patients under the Swasthya Sathi scheme, a flagship scheme the service of which has now been extended to the entire population of the state. More than two crore families across the state have already enrolled for the Swasthya Sathi scheme so far. More than 3,600 patients receive treatment under it on a daily basis. On average, over one lakh population get treated in a month.

According to the state government figure, the scheme had covered more than 1.43 crore families till November 2020. Since December 2020, around 76 lakh new families have been brought under the scheme through the recently held 'Duare Sarkar' camps. Biometric-based smart cards have been issued to more than 66 lakh families.

In another development, the state government revised the rate of packages under the Swasthya Sathi scheme. The rate of 33 commonly used packages under five disciplines of general medicine, general surgery, cardiothoracic, endoscopic procedures, obstetrics and gynaecology will be increased by 10-20 per cent. The increase will cost the government more than Rs 200 crore additional expenditure per year. The state government has agreed to revise the rates of 105 packages by 15-20 per cent.

The rate of ICU beds will be increased from Rs 1,500 to 1,800 in case of Grade A hospitals while in case of Grade B the rate has been increased to Rs 900 from Rs 750. The rate of stent implant will be increased by 10-15 per cent. The double valve replacement rate will also be increased by 15-20 per cent. The cost has been enhanced from Rs 1,80,000 to Rs 2,00,000. In case of general surgery, the rate has been increased by around 10-15 per cent. For example, the cost of appendix surgery has been increased to Rs 18,000 from Rs 15,000. The rate of cardiac surgery has also been increased by 10-15 per cent. In some cases the increase has gone up by 20 per cent, Health Secretary Narayan Swaroop Nigam said on Tuesday.

A total of 2,047 hospitals, including both private and public, have been empanelled under Swasthya Sathi. Around 510 public hospitals have been included with 64,606 beds. To ensure no refusal of treatment, more than 400 new private hospitals have been empanelled taking the total number of private hospitals to 1,537 with an increase of the total number of beds from 45,827 to 57,305.