Bill Gates congratulates Indian govt for Ayushman Bharat scheme

 Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has congratulated the Indian government for the successful completion of the first 100 days of the healthcare scheme Ayushman Bharat from its launch.

"Congratulations to the Indian government on the first 100 days of @AyushmanNHA. It's great to see how many people have been reached by the program so far. @PMOIndia", Bill Gates tweeted.

The response from Gates came after Union Health Minister JP Nadda informed that 685000 beneficiaries have availed free health care in just first 100 days of the scheme and the number is rising rapidly.

"In just first 100 days of #AyushmanBharat, 685000 beneficiaries availed free health care & the number is rising rapidly," Nadda tweeted.

Similarly, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on January 3 praised Prime Minister Modi and the Health Minister for their visionary leadership which helped around seven lakh people avail benefits of the healthcare scheme.

"In its first 100 days, #India's ambitious #AyushmanBharat scheme has provided free care for almost 700,000 people. I applaud Prime Minister @narendramodi and Health Minister @JPNadda for their visionary leadership for #HealthForAll (sic)," Ghebreyesus tweeted.

On January 1, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed the government's flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat a "game changer" in healthcare and said on an average 5,000 claims is being settled every day since its rollout on September 23, 2018.

The scheme, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Ranchi in Jharkhand on September 23, aims to provide health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family annually to more than 10.74 crore poor families or 50 crore people for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation through a network of empanelled health care providers.

The world's largest ambitious health care scheme PM-JAY will cover medical and hospitalisation expenses for almost all secondary care and most tertiary care procedures. PM-JAY has defined 1,350 medical packages covering surgery, medical and daycare treatments including medicines, diagnostics and transport.