Kolkata: Swasthya Sathi scheme once again turned saviour for the family members of a 75-year-old patient from North 24-Parganas' Barasat who had no health scheme and failed to pay the bill of a private nursing home after undergoing treatment for two days.
The family members had faced difficulties after the septuagenarian Ranjit Ghosh was admitted to a local nursing home after suffering a stroke last Monday.
They had no health scheme. The hospital had prepared a bill of around Rs 52,000 for two-day stay of the patient. The family members found it extremely difficult to pay the amount.
The local councilor Champak Das who is the outgoing chairman-in-council of health department under Barasat Municipality arranged a Swasthya Sathi card for Ghosh family on a war footing.
"We have arranged a Swasthy Sathi card on an emergency basis as the family was unable to pay the bill of the nursing home. Not only the Ghosh family, many others are reaping the benefits of the milestone scheme, a brain child of the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. There has been unprecedented enthusiasm among the people regarding Swasthya Sathi after the state government brought the entire population under the scheme," Das said.
In a separate incident, Biswanath Deb (67), a resident of Habra in North 24-Parganas was admitted to a private hospital in Barasat after he complained about severe respiratory distress. The doctors in the hospital said that the patient had over 90 percent heart blockage and the patient required an emergency heart operation. The Deb family had a Swasthya Sathi card and the patient availed treatment worth Rs 3 lakh under the Swasthya Sathi scheme. The surgery was conducted by the doctors successfully.
The family members of the patient expressed their gratitude to the state government more particularly to the Chief Minister who had conceptualized the free health
scheme.
The patient would not have been able to avail treatment by spending Rs 3 lakh as he belongs to lower middle class background. The patient used to visit door-to-door to sell various products, said Swapan Deb, younger brother of the patient.