1,375 cancer patients treated under MHIS in 8 months

Staff Reporter

Shillong, Sept 19: Minister-in-charge of Health & Family Welfare Ampareen Lyngdoh today said over 1,375 cancer patients have been treated under the Megha Health Insurance Scheme (MHIS) for the period of January-August 2023.

Of this, 528 are females and 847 are males, she said.

Replying to a short-duration discussion in the Assembly, Lyngdoh said MHIS Phase 6 – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) started on September 1, 2022.

Transition to the scheme’s next phase was made without any breaks and disruption, which allows beneficiaries to continue availing services under the scheme.

“Despite the change of Phase 5 to Phase 6, registered beneficiaries/households will not be required to register themselves again, therefore relieving the public from renewal of cards from one phase to the next. Such improvements in the scheme’s implementation are what contribute to the success of the scheme,” she said.

She informed that Reliance General Insurance Company Limited is the current insurance company identified for implementing the scheme in Meghalaya for MHIS 6 selected through a rigorous and competitive bidding process.

Highlighting some of the key features of MHIS 6 – PMJAY, Lyngdoh said there is an increased insurance cover of ₹ 5,30,000 per family per year, inclusive of ₹ 30,000 OPD cover, no limits on the family size and the scheme continues to cover pre-existing diseases.

She said the number of Health Benefits Packages is 2253 packages and 2665 procedures which include OPD/Day-care, OPD diagnostics, medical treatments, surgical procedures, and high-end drugs packages.  Existing PMJAY-MHIS Card holders will not need to register themselves, however eligible unregistered beneficiaries can undertake the registration process at designated centres. Beneficiaries can utilise the benefits at any empanelled hospital across the country.

Stating that several improvements have been further envisioned by the Government during this phase, Lyngdoh said the new financial guidelines have been introduced, to enable public hospitals to manage their insurance-generated funds more efficiently to upgrade or improve their existing services and to effectively incentivize their staff based on performance.

“With the new guidelines, public hospitals will contribute a percentage of their earnings to a State Corpus Fund, which can be utilized for treating BPL and deprived beneficiaries of the state for selected high-end tertiary care, like open heart surgeries, liver and organ transplant, and treatment for rare diseases in hospitals, either inside or outside the state of Meghalaya.”

Further, the minister informed that the State Corpus Fund is an initiative to provide additional benefits to BPL/Deprived beneficiaries, over and above the existing insurance cover.

On the medical benefits to government employees, Lyngdoh said the government has adopted Meghalaya Medical Attendance Rules (MMA) 2021 under the Department of health and Family Welfare, providing government employees with a reimbursement-based system for availing medical treatment.

The state currently has approximately 68,280 in-service employees and approximately 24,044 pensioners and all-India service employees.

Overall, approximately 4,42,155 members are getting medical reimbursements from different departments based on MMA rules 2021.

Presently, the government of Meghalaya employees do not have cashless coverage for their medical services, despite the state of Meghalaya having universal health coverage for all citizens.

Govt should discuss issues raised by opposition

Staff Reporter

Shillong, Sept 15: Opposition AITC leader and former chief minister Mukul Sangma today said that the State government instead of making an appeal should call for a meeting in regard to the issues to be raised by the opposition in the Assembly’s autumn session, which went underway here.

When sought for his comment on the request made by deputy chief minister in-charge parliamentary affairs Prestone Tynsong that the opposition should sit down together and decide on the issues to avoid overlapping and wasting of time, Sangma said, “You should put the question back to the deputy CM in-charge Parliamentary affairs. It is considered as an approach to see that okay there is a healthy environment created in sync with the tradition that we are proud of in as far as the tradition of our August House is concerned, the dignity, the quorum and quality of debate and deliberation in the House has always been a matter of pride for the people of the State.”

“Therefore, in that line, if the government is sending that kind of appeal or whatever you may call it then we expect them to call for a meeting. They can’t just drop their idea on the streets. There is a way of doing things,” he said.

Stating that the present House has many newly elected members, Sangma said, “There is a need to have a kind of floor management which should be preceded by the kind of discussion amongst the political parties both in the ruling and the opposition that is what we are trying to do.”

“At the same time, we also intend to give more time, more space for our friends who are newly elected,” he added.

HYC warns govt of MBoSE like situation

The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) today warned the state government of an MBoSE-like situation if it fails to address the issue concerning the implementation of the roster system.

“We want to remind the state government that if it fails to address this issue, I am afraid the MBoSE-like situation might happen in the state of Meghalaya. Therefore, we request the government to immediately solve this problem either through the Cabinet or State Assembly or an All-party meeting, we don’t care but what we care is that this issue should be solved once and for all,” HYC president Robertjune Kharjahrin told reporters after submitting a memorandum to the Chief Secretary DP Wahlang here for demanding that the roster should be implemented prospectively from 2022 onwards.

“The Chief Secretary has informed us that they will place this matter before the Cabinet and we hope that the cabinet will consider our point of view because we have seen that in social media and even in the streets there is a huge misunderstanding now between the Khasi Jaintia and Garo community,” he said while adding “We don’t want to see that will remain we want to see that the government should step in now and solve this problem because the very purpose of having a government is to solve the problems not to leave problems like this without solving them.”

“Now, if you see the statement, the minister will blame the Court and the Court says it is up to the government to fix the cut-off date I mean the public will feel remediless. Let us hope the government will step in and solve this problem and the moment this problem is solved I think this issue will disappear and our youth both from Khasi-Jaintia and Garo community will start applying for all the jobs,” he asserted.

The memorandum will also be submitted to all ministers and leaders of all political parties for their necessary intervention in the matter.

Kharjahrin informed that in the memorandum, the HYC has demanded that the cut-off date for implementation of the roster system should be prospectively from 2022 since the Meghalaya High Court had clearly stated these are policy matters best left to the executive and the legislature.

“This is also because the Supreme Court in so many of the cases had clearly stated that roster should be implemented prospectively not retrospectively. Therefore, we would like to see if the government decide either through a state legislative Assembly or an All-party meeting or even through the Cabinet because office memorandum (OM) can be changed at the Cabinet level itself,” he added.

He also informed that the Council also demanded that when it comes to a backlog, there should not be any deviation from the policy.

“We have seen some departments now are starting to talk about filling up the backlog posts. What is necessary to understand is that as per the Meghalaya Job Reservation Policy, if there is any category that cannot fill up any posts, that category can be filled up by another category and in the next recruitment year there should be some adjustment but if in that recruitment year, that particular category could not fill up that post lapsed, the policy says it so. So when it lapsed how can you now start talking about backlog? Of course, if there are one or three posts which do not lapse yet then you deserve to fill up but when the post already lapses. 1972-1973 posts till 2022 let us be franked they already lapse as so many recruitment years have come one after another. When it comes to backlog we would like to see there should not be any deviation from the policy and there should not be any contradictory to the policy. When the posts lapse it lapses you cannot talk about backlogs.”

“Thirdly, we have seen in the past two-three weeks that there is a recruitment agency both in East Khasi Hills and West Khasi Hills where they start giving roster separate for Khasi and Jaintia and Garo categories but if we go as per the policy it says that in district level category there will be 80 per cent for Khasi-Jaintia Hills and 80 per cent for Garo Hills that is what we are following for the past 50 years. When we have a combined Khasi, Jaintia and Garo category at the district level, where is the question now of giving a particular post for Khasi and Jaintia and a particular post for Garo. So this is illegal because the policy does not allow doing so,” Kharjahrin further added.