TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The State government is introducing a new universal health insurance scheme called the Deen Dayal Swasth Seva providing upto Rs 4.5 lakh insurance for a family of up to six members.
The scheme will be launched in the first fortnight of June and replace the ineffective Swarnajayanti Bima Yojana which was started by the previous government, Health Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said.
“Within a week we will be publishing the tenders and by the first fortnight of June it should be started,” Parsekar said.
“The earlier scheme was thought of in a hurry. It was an election oriented scheme and not a people oriented scheme. The money that was promised was inadequate, so many hospitals did not empanel themselves under the scheme,” Parsekar said.
He said that if the earlier scheme was not discontinued, the state government would be spending close to Rs 8 crore per year, whereas the corresponding benefits to the state were not worth so much.
“So we decided to discontinue it,” Parsekar said.
Parsekar also said that there would be a list of 100 specialty surgeries that are not being conducted at GMC but which are offered by empanelled hospitals and patients could directly walk into these hospitals and avail of treatment without having to go through the formalities of paperwork.
Touching on the issue of pending cases of mediclaim bills, Parsekar said that in all likelihood these patients are bringing delayed bills, or that they had not approached the health department either before the operation or soon after.
“Misuse of the scheme is also prevalent,” Parsekar said. He said he wanted to ensure that there was no overlap of schemes especially that of the Swarna Arogya Bima Yojana (SABY) the regular mediclaim scheme and the new scheme he was launching.
