More than 2 lakh patients used Centre’s free dialysis schemes in two years

More than 2.3 lakh poor patients have availed the Centre’s free dialysis scheme in the last two years.

The Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme (PMNDP), which was rolled out in 2016, provides free dialysis care to the patients in district hospitals, in collaboration with private partners, through the PPP mode. At present, this facility is available in 500 district hospitals. As per the provisions, the private partner provides medical human resource, dialysis machine along with ‘reverse osmosis’ (RO) water plant infrastructure, dialyzer and consumables, while the space, power, and water supply within the district hospitals are provided by the state government. As per reports from the state governments, more than 2.3 lakh patients have availed this scheme till March this year, with 22 lakh dialysis sessions, for which more than Rs 330 crore has been approved. Most of the patients who availed the scheme were from West Bengal (more than 42,000 patients), followed by Gujarat (more than 35,000 patients). Puducherry, despite being a small state, reported more than 10,500 beneficiaries. In 2016, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the scheme in the annual Budget, saying it would be made available through the PPP mode under the National Health Mission. This is to be noted that more than 2.2 lakh new patients of end stage renal disease get added in India every year. As a result there is additional demand of 3.4 crore dialysis session.

There are about 4,950 dialysis centre, mostly in private sector and big cities. As a result, getting dialysis service becomes a huge burden on people living in far-away areas. Every dialysis session costs about Rs 2,000, with annual expenditure of more than Rs 3 lakh.