AP expands Arogyasri gamut with 809 more ailments

AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Government, led by Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy, added 809 more medical ailments which would be treated to the Aarogyasri scheme after which the Chief Minister asked the Medical and Health Department to ensure that all required facilities, including the number of doctors and medicines, were made available in all hospitals.

During the review meeting held here on Friday, the Chief Minister after formally launching the additional services, said that the addition will take the total number of free medical services under Aarogyasri to 3,255.

The number of ailments treated under Aarogyasri, which stood at 1,059 during the TDP tenure, went up to 2,059 in January 2020 after the YSRCP came to power, then to 2,200 in July 2020 and 2,436 in November 2020 (with 235 procedures including bone marrow), to 2,446 (including 10 Covid pandemic procedures) in May-June 2021 and to 3,255 now.

The budget of Aarogyasri went up to Rs. 3481.70 crores, three times more of what was spent during the TDP regime, to which Jagan said that the scheme was being implemented prestigiously.

He said that, besides providing all facilities in hospitals, the Government had filled up 46,000 posts in the department with the sole aim of extending quality medical services to the people and now it was the duty of the officials to make use of the facilities and staff in a proper manner.

The Chief Minister asked the officials to introduce facial recognition methods for attendance in the Department while ensuring that a sufficient number of doctors and medical staff were present in all hospitals.

Stressing the need to create block-level supervisory system to monitor the working of the staff in the Department, the Chief Minister asked the officials to send suitable proposals. He also asked them to work in coordination with Women and Child Welfare Department and get regular reports on sanitation, air pollution, drinking water, cleanliness and toilet maintenance at anganwadis.

He said there was a need to pay special attention towards high-risk pregnant women during delivery and anaemic women to bring down the health risks among them, while periodically updating the health history on all Aarogyasi Cards for enabling family doctors to treat the patients effectively.