Amid COVID-19, AB-PMJAY empanel dialysis centres for renal patients
Jun 01, 2020
By Priyanka Sharma
New Delhi [India] June 1 : Amid the coronavirus crisis, the National Health Authority (NHA) has taken a new initiative to empanel dialysis single speciality hospitals under Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) to provide quality healthcare service to the vulnerable sections of the society.
Doctors have already warned that due to COVID-19 infection, elderly and people with pre-existing disease are at a higher risk. Similarly, patients with chronic kidney disease stage-5 (CKD-5) on dialysis are also vulnerable because of their existing co-morbidities, repeated unavoidable exposure to the hospital environment and immune-suppressed state due to CKD-5.
Dr JL Meena, General Manager, Hospital Networking and Quality Assurance at AB-PMJAY said, "Recently, the NHA has revised its policy to incorporate standalone dialysis centre into its empanelment criteria's. We are framing its guidelines for it."
When contacted Dr Anup Kumar, head of the renal transplant at Safdarjung Hospital, said, "It is a welcome move. This will help patients needing dialysis even in these difficult times of COVID-19. In a year, at least 1,90,000 people require dialysis services who suffer from kidney complication in India."
Dr Kumar informed that even in the lockdown due to COVID-19, the government has made dialysis services as an essential treatment. Hence, no hospital can refuse patients for dialysis even though routine facilities are not operational.
Recently, the NHA informed that under the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme, about 2,300 patients have received treatment for COVID-19 free of cost in various hospitals and at least 3,000 people were tested against coronavirus in the last one and a half months.
Since its launch in September 2018, the Ayushman Bharat has provided treatment to one crore patients. These treatments worth Rs 13,412 crore have been provided through a growing network of 21,565 public and private empanelled hospitals.
To manage the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, AB-PMJAY is doing monitoring and teleconsultations for PM-JAY high-risk beneficiaries through Aarogya Setu Tele-Consultation, monitoring and tracking of SARI treatments and answering queries on 1075, the COVID national helpline number, said the official.
