State Healthcare System Feels Pulse of People: CM YS Jagan at WEF Summit

Davos: Articulating efficacy of the State’s healthcare system, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said that the policy is being pursued with care knowing the pulse of the people with preventive and curative measures and the outreach percolating to micro level. 

Participating in the group discussion on Future-proofing Health Systems at the World Economic Forum (WEF) here on Monday, the Chief Minister made an impressive presentation of healthcare being implemented in the State with focus from micro level where a population of 2,000 will have a Village Clinic with health workers monitoring the medicare and will stand as a Medical Hub. At the next level, taking mandal (block) with a population of 30,000 as a unit, two Primary Health Centres (PHCs) will be in place where four doctors will be working. Two of them will be assigned four to five villages depending on the size and they will give dedicated services to those villages touring in ambulances and connecting with the locals like family doctors. 

Hon’ble Chief Minister Sri @ysjagan discussing ‘Proactive, Preventive and Curative’ measures to build resilient Healthcare systems and decentralised governance to ensure the benefits reaches to last mile.#CMYSJaganInDavos #APatWEF22 #AndhraPradesh pic.twitter.com/aEAputiQQs

— YSR Congress Party (@YSRCParty) May 23, 2022

At macro level, teaching hospitals will take care of the curative part of the healthcare, he said adding that while the state has 11 teaching hospitals, 16 more hospitals will be coming up covering all the parliament constituencies in the State for equitable distribution of health care. 

ఏపీలో వైయస్ఆర్ ఆరోగ్య శ్రీ ద్వారా పేదలకు ఉచిత వైద్యం. #CMYSJaganInDavos #AndhraPradesh #APatWEF22 pic.twitter.com/wrrZWfbvct

— YSR Congress Party (@YSRCParty) May 23, 2022

On the policies, practices and partnerships adapted and scaled in health systems to build resilience and ensure uninterrupted care even in times of shocks and crisis, the Chief Minister said that the State had taken up house-to-house survey 44 times during the pandemic and followed the policy of tracing, testing and treating which resulting in lower mortality rate (0.63 percent), lesser than the national average (1.21 percent). 

For healthcare, the Chief Minister said, one has to look at the availability, accessibility and affordability and the State has been implementing YSR Aarogyasri which has provided treatment free of cost to over 25 lakh people during the last three years and 1.44 crore households of the total 1.54 houses in the State were given the cards scaling down the eligibility criteria to Rs five lakh per annum. 

On a national level Ayushman Bharath, an insurance scheme for States, is available but it covers only 1,000 procedures while we have widened the scope by including 2,446 procedures. ‘I named the scheme after my father which shows the priority I give to it,’ he said, giving a personal touch.  

On the pandemic, he said, no one had anticipated the scale and intensity of Covid in our generation, at least, and how the healthcare system had to brace up if such a situation recurs. The pandemic has taught us quite a few lessons and became an eye opener. 

We did everything we could do and we had our own constraints, being a newly formed state and we lack big cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore or Chennai and do not have super speciality hospitals but still we did our best in containing the spread and keeping the mortality rate very low. 

Also Read: 3 Years of YS Jagan’s Rule: Combination of Good Governance and Welfare Schemes

We had a robust delivery mechanism in place with 42,000 health workers constantly monitoring the situation from micro level. Despite the difficulties, we are pushing through and allocated two billion dollars and are working towards increasing medical infrastructure. Other participants in the debate include Leif Johansson (AstraZeneca) Jayasree K Iyer (Access to Medicine Foundation) and Catherine Russell (UNICEF) while Nzinga Quanta moderated the discussion.