Pankaj Kumar, aged 17 years from Bihar’s Vaishali district died waiting for a bone marrow transplant in AIIMS despite being eligible for assistance under Ayushman Bharat and poor enough for Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi (RAN), a scheme meant for below poverty line (BPL) patients.

The main problem of his case like several others, was that government rules instruct that those eligible under Ayushman can’t be assisted through RAN, however the flagship scheme does not cover such transplants.

TOI had reported on the dilemma of such patients and one of them, Mohammed Sameer, has also approached the Delhi high court, which in an interim order directed AIIMS to start treatment and carry out the transplant at the health ministry’s cost. But the court did not extend this to others like Pankaj and on Monday, Pankaj succumbed to his disease.

Pankaj was suffering from aplastic anemia and a bone marrow transplant could possibly have saved him. Four months back, Pankaj’s older brother Pappu was matched as a donor but the procedure costs them Rs 12 lakh in AIIMS.

The treatment is not covered under Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan AarogyaYojana (ABPMJAY), and is beyond AB-PMJAY’s limit of Rs 5 lakh. But as Pankaj’s name figured in the AB-PMJAY database, he was declared unqualified for RAN, which provides up to Rs 15 lakh for treatment of poor patients suffering from life threatening conditions.

Pankaj’s mother Sonia Devi tearfully recounted to TOI that they had sold the only plot of land they had and the entire family had moved to Delhi a year back for his treatment. Only left in the village is the hut in which her elderly in-laws stay. She pleaded to return the Ayushman card so that her son could get treated under RAN, for which they were eligible as they had a BPL card.

Vishwanath Saini, Pankaj’s father said that he does mazdoori in Delhi to make ends meet and have rented a room near Azadpur Mandi. They barely make enough for them to manage for his wife and two sons. This Ayushman card has blocked the only hope they had as BPL patients.

Last year in August, the medical superintendent of AIIMS, Delhi informed the health ministry that many poor patients suffering from conditions which required treatments are not listed under ABPMJAY were unable to get assistance due to the RAN guidelines barring ABPMJAY beneficiaries. The AIIMS letter had stated that applications for assistance under RAN were being rejected by the ministry’s central committee despite being approved by the AIIMS technical committee and highlighted that before AB-PMJAY was launched, all BPL patients could benefit assistance from RAN.

The ministry responded to AIIMS stating that the suggestions of the National Health Authority (NHA) and AIIMS to let AB-PMJAY beneficiaries get assistance under RAN “cannot be agreed to”.

Source: ET Healthworld