Swasthya Sathi scheme benefits 3 cr in 7 months

In just seven months, the state government has brought around 3 crore people under the Swasthya Sathi Scheme.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had launched the scheme on December 30, 2016. Civic police volunteers, disaster management workers, ASHA workers, Self-Help Groups, home guards, ICDS workers and other contractual workers get a basic health coverage of Rs 1.5 lakh per year and in case a person suffers from diseases like cancer, liver ailments, blood disorders or need to undergo a neuro surgery, cardio thoracic surgeries, then the coverage will go up to Rs 5 lakh. The state government has sanctioned Rs 1,000 crore for the project.

Chandrima Bhattacharya, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare department, said in a reply to a question in the state Assembly on Friday: "Till date, the scheme involves 3 crore people from 35.13 lakh families. We are targeting another 11.30 lakh

people under the scheme and applications from 9.6 lakh are under process."

"Swasthya Sathi cards have been distributed among them using which they can get treatment in any of the 314 private hospitals and 308 government hospitals," she said adding that treatment in state-run hospitals is free of cost.

Another important feature of the scheme is that a Swasthya Sathi card holder is entitled to take his parents, spouse, children and even his spouse's parents for treatment. All of them will get the same benefits.

This is one of the dream projects of the Chief Minister that aims to provide health insurance as it acts as a social security for people who work as contractual workers. Moreover, there are a total of 1,900 different packages under which beneficiaries get support for treatment.

It may be mentioned that members of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have also been brought under the Swasthya Sathi scheme. It encouraged more people to form SHGs to be self-dependent.