Depriving the deprived
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: January 23 2013 -
God may have created Man in His own image, but all of us look different.
And, we may be equal in the eyes of law, but the poor people who are always in majority are condemned to lead a life of drudgery at the mercy of a few filthy rich.
This is the dilemma of life.
This philosophical meandering into the mystery of life has got nothing to do with religious preaching for attaining salvation but to raise an important question: Why the poor people are always being deprived of their due shares and rights in a so-called welfare State like ours?
It is sad to learn that implementation of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) or National Health Insurance Programme, a government-run health insurance scheme, which ensures cashless hospitalization to at least five immediate members of a family in public as well as private hospitals, is on the brink of collapse in Manipur today.
As a project of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India and with solid backing of Unorganised Worker Social Security Act, 2008, RSBY started enrolling on April 1, 2008 in other parts of the country, though it came a bit late in Manipur (December, 2009, to be precise).
The objective of the scheme is to provide protection to BPL households from financial liabilities arising out of health shocks that involve hospitalization.
The scheme is run on shared financial contribution from both the Centre and the State Governments.
While the Central share is 75 percent of the premium to be paid per person per year in case of other States, for Jammu & Kashmir and Northeastern States including Manipur, it is 90 percent and the respective State Governments needs to pay only 10 percent of the premium.
It is common knowledge that for people living below poverty line, an illness not only represents a permanent threat to their income earning capacity, but in most cases it could result in the family falling into debt traps. To solve this problem, the Ministry designed and implemented RSBY to ensure increase access to healthcare by BPL population of the country and to improve their quality of life.
Beneficiaries under RSBY are entitled to hospitalization coverage up to Rs. 30,000/- for most of the diseases that require hospitalization and the coverage extends to five members of the family which includes the head of the household, spouse and three other dependents, who could be either their children or parents or both.
Another interesting feature of the scheme is that pre-existing illnesses are covered from day one of enrollment.
The popularity of the scheme is such that it has won plaudits from World Bank, UN and ILO while countries like Germany have shown keen interest to adopt similar model for revamping its own social security system.
In such a situation, it is really unfortunate that the Director of Manipur State RSBY has curtailed the flow of funds under the scheme and the deprived the benefits of the scheme to the beneficiaries since January 15.
Subsequently, the three (from the initial four with inclusion of Public Hospital and Research Institute at Hatta Minuthong, which is no more in operation) empanelled private hospitals namely, Raj Polyclinic at North AOC; Langol View at Lamphel and Shija Hospital at Langol too have stopped giving treatment to BLP families as the mounting due has not been cleared, thus leaving the poor patients in the lurch, as always expected ironically in a welfare State.
By the way, if the State Government is not in a position to clear the hospitalization charges for treatment of the beneficiaries in expensive private hospitals, why can't it empanel any of the hospital or health institutions under its wing?
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