Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission on the occasion of World Tourism Day and said that the mission would bring a revolutionary change in India’s health sector. He also said that health has a strong relationship with tourism and strengthening of the health infrastructure will help improve the tourism sector.
“Today we are launching a mission that has the potential of bringing a revolutionary change in India’s health facilities … Health has a very strong relationship with tourism. When our health infrastructure is integrated, strengthened, it also improves the tourism sector,” the prime minister said while launching the mission in a virtual conference on Monday.
Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission will create a seamless online platform that will enable interoperability within the digital health ecosystem. It will now connect the digital health solutions of hospitals across the country. Under this, every citizen will get a digital health ID and their health record will be digitally protected, he said.
Pointing out that the campaign of strengthening health facilities have been going for the last seven, the prime minister said that India has the biggest digital infrastructure connection with 130 crore Aadhaar numbers, 118 crore mobile subscribers, about 80 crore internet users and 43 crore Jan Dhan bank accounts.
This digital infrastructure is bringing everything from ration to administration (Ration to Prashasan) to the common Indian in a fast and transparent manner, he said.
“The way technology is being deployed in governance reforms today is unprecedented,” Modi said.
Saying that the Arogya Setu app helped a lot in preventing the spread of corona infection, he lauded Co-WIN for the record administration of about 90 crore vaccine doses today, under the free vaccine campaign.
The prime minister said that there has also been an unprecedented expansion of telemedicine during the Corona period. So far about 125 crore, remote consultations have been completed through e-Sanjeevani, he said. He also said that over two crore citizens have availed free treatment facility under Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY.
India is working on a holistic health model, which stresses preventive healthcare and, in case of disease, easy, affordable and accessible treatment, Modi said. He also discussed unprecedented reforms in health education and said a much larger number of doctors and par medical manpower is being created in India now.
A comprehensive network of AIIMS and other modern health institutions is being established in the country and work on establishing one medical college in every three Lok Sabha constituencies is going on. He also spoke about strengthening health facilities in villages. More than 80 thousand such centres have been made operational, he added, according to a release issued by the PMO.
