25% of patients could have caught Covid-19 in all 3 waves: Practo Report

 The report ‘Understanding Covid-19: Comparing all three waves in India’ analyses how Indians accessed healthcare during the three covid waves.

The data collated by health tech firm Practo about the three waves of Covid-19 pandemic shows that about 25 per cent of the patients could have caught the Covid-19 in all three waves. The report ‘Understanding Covid-19: Comparing all three waves in India’ analyses how Indians accessed healthcare during the three covid waves. The average time spent by a patient with a doctor online during this time was 30 minutes, which is comparable to in-person visits.

In the last two years, digital healthcare has played an important role in managing the Covid-19 pandemic. With speculations about the impending fourth wave going on, it is necessary to understand the health trends from the first three waves so that we, as a community, are better prepared for it.

Report findings during all three waves:

70% of all online consultations for Covid-19

Second wave was the deadliest with a 690% surge in online consultations at its peak

57% of all telemedicine users experienced it for the first time

54% of all online consultations were from millennials and Gen Zs

There was 50% growth in alternative medicine like Ayurveda and Homeopathy… Read More

Ayushman Bharat working to identify those left out, says CEO Indu Bhushan

In the first year, the momentum has been quite good and we are quite pleased with the way the scheme has rolled out, says Bhushan

About 70 per cent Indians rely on private healthcare for their health needs and bear out of pocket costs, which plunged 55 million people into poverty in 2012. India has earlier tried out national insurance models such as the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) that started in 2008, aiming to cover hospitalisation expenses upto Rs 30,000 for families below the poverty line. Its overall performance was poor and the scheme failed to reduce impoverishment.

In September 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ambitious Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), the National Health Protection Scheme, in Ranchi, Jharkhand. The scheme that subsumed RSBY provided an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh to 100 million ‘poor and vulnerable’ families identified by the socio-economic caste census (SECC) of 2011.

More than a year later, we spoke with Indu Bhushan, the chief executive officer of AB-PMJAY and the National Health Authority (NHA), which is responsible for implementing the scheme. “We have gone beyond RSBY,” said Bhushan, sitting in his seventh floor NHA office on New Delhi’s Janpath. By December 2, 2019, PMJAY has covered over 6.8 million hospitalisations worth Rs 7,160 crore and has issued over 67 million e-cards to beneficiaries, according to PMJAY website and NHA. It is present in all but four states–Odisha, Telangana, West Bengal and New Delhi.

Pointing to the large screen showing the PMJAY dashboard, Bhushan said two-thirds of the hospitalisations were in private hospitals and for tertiary care. “So we are taking care of problems like catastrophic expenditure,” Bhushan said. “We have spent Rs 8,000 crore, but the savings to people is Rs 15,000 crore.”

Low health care expenditure to impact risk-pooling model: NITI Aayog

Think tank plans building up system for middle class, which isn’t covered under any health scheme

The country’s low expenditure on public health care (estimated to be 0.9-1.1 per cent of GDP) is a big constraint in growing the subsidised risk pooling model in health care.

This is particularly true for the poor and sick and those who need them the most, a report by NITI Aayog, released on Monday, said. The current Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), commonly known as Ayushman Bharat, is an example of a subsidised risk pooling model in the health care sector.

The report titled, ‘Health Systems for a New India: Building Blocks – Potential Pathways to Reforms’ that was released by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar, in the presence of Bill Gates, said better evidence-based decisions on what components of the health care package are to be subsidised for these populations are the need of the hour.

The Aayog, meanwhile, is mulling building up a health care system for the middle class, which is still not covered under any public health care system. The system would exclude those covered under the newly-launched Ayushman Bharat scheme that mainly caters to the bottom 40 per cent population of the country.

Meanwhile, the report said that estimates suggest that per-capita expenditures in health care for the poor (after cost-effective public goods are financed for the entire population) would more than triple if public funds were to be fully targeted only for the poor. While India’s public expenditure on health care has stagnated at around 0.9-1.1 per cent of GDP, in China it is 3.2 per cent of GDP. In Chile, it is 4.9 per cent and 9.4 per cent of GDP in Germany.

After 128 encephalitis deaths, Bihar’s poorest prefer health to jobs, roads

Investment in public health was preferred to job creation programmes and road building by 73% and 79% of respondents, respectively

As 128 children died of encephalitis in Bihar over 19 days to June 21, 2019, a new study reports that the state’s rural population prefers government investment in public healthcare over roads, jobs and cash transfers.

In a survey conducted by the Brookings Institution, an American research group, in an administrative block of Bihar, 3,800 respondents–comprising the poor, less-educated and disadvantaged caste groups–were asked to make a choice: an incremental (and hypothetical) budget for their block to be transferred directly to them as direct cash transfers (DCT), or budgetary allocations for better welfare services.

Only 13% wanted the funds to come their way via DCT. The majority (86%) wanted it to be invested in public healthcare (the remaining 1% had no opinion on the matter). Approximately 63% of respondents wanted the budget to be spent on new roads rather than the DCT scheme, the study found. Investment in public health was preferred to job creation programmes and road building by 73% and 79% of respondents, respectively.

“It would appear from these responses that some of the poorest citizens of one of the most economically underdeveloped parts of India prioritise public health well above job creation programmes and roads, with cash coming last,” said Stuti Khemani, one of the report’s co-authors and a senior economist at the World Bank’s Development Research Group.

Poor, third most populous state, Bihar gets 1% of transfer funds

The central government launched the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) programme on January 1, 2013, with the aim of “reforming Government delivery system by re-engineering the existing process in welfare schemes for simpler and faster flow of information/funds, and to ensure accurate targeting of the beneficiaries, de-duplication and reduction of fraud”.

This flow of funds to the public takes place through two modes, cash (DCT) or kind. During 2018-19, an estimated Rs 2,14,092 crore ($30.7 billion) was transferred to approximately 590 million beneficiaries in the country, and accounted for 65% of the total DBT provided by the central government…

Click Here: encephalitis deaths

Daily Healthcare Tips for Senior Citizens

Senior Citizens in the age group of 65+ require special attention to their health is no secret. Getting older shouldn't mean illnesses, ailments and a poor quality of life.

 

Senior Citizens in the age group of 65+ require special attention to their health is no secret. Getting older shouldn’t mean illnesses, ailments and a poor quality of life. It is seen that young people with healthy habits age well, thus it is always good to start early. But understanding that it’s never late to start living healthy is also important. With old age comes decline in both physical and mental health. With age there will be changes in skin, bones, brain, teeth, eyes and much more of a person. Thus it becomes doubly important for senior citizens to take extra care of themselves. Firstly it’s extremely vital for a senior citizen to take control of his or her health. Some Daily healthcare tips related to diet, activities and lifestyle for senior citizens are mentioned below:

Staying Active

Adequate amount of daily or regular physical activity will go a long way in keeping senior citizens both healthy and happy. This also helps fight a number of lifestyle diseases such as heart diseases, diabetes, colon cancer and more. Depending upon one’s age, likes and current health condition one can decide upon various activities. Formulating a sensible routine or exercise program is important. One can always seek professional help of a doctor or of a health professional....read more