The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has announced that it plans to launch a ‘Chief Minister Health at Doorstep’ scheme worth Rs 1,500-crore for the citizens of Mumbai.
This scheme, which aims to provide free healthcare facilities to the residents of Mumbai, includes providing medicines free of cost at civic hospitals, delivery of drug consumable services for senior citizens directly to their doorstep, improved infrastructure for the treatment of cancer and digitisation of records.
BMC Additional Municipal Commissioner Sudhakar Shinde threw light on the scheme at the inauguration of the 6th CII Hospital Tech Summit on Thursday. He said that the scheme will focus on reducing out of pocket expenditure and blood samples of all people above 60 years of age will be collected as part of this for examination.
Speaking at the event, Dr Shinde shared that more than 4,500 drug consumable services will be provided to the patients at their doorsteps. “We analysed the expenditure that the common public has incurred out of drugs consumables and disposables is around 5,000 crores. BMC, leveraging the advantages of quantities and economies of scale, is committed to spending no less than 1,500 crores to provide these benefits. BMC spends 15 per cent of its budget on healthcare, a significantly higher proportion than any other state in the country,” he added.
PET scans and various cancer treatment facilities are being set up by the BMC as part of its initiative to expand the infrastructure to combat cancer, informed the BMC Additional Municipal Commissioner.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)
Zero Prescription Policy
Chief Minister of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde’s office also made an announcement about the same on social media. They posted on microblogging platform X, “The Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has instructed Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal that a comprehensive report should be submitted after a detailed review to implement the ‘Zero Prescription Policy’ to provide all the medical facilities and medicines provided in the hospital of BMC to the citizens.
Mumbai Municipality will be the first municipality in the country to implement ‘Zero Prescription Policy’ and thus health services will be available completely free of cost. The Chief Minister has also directed to improve the procurement process of medicines and resources implemented through the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to implement this scheme.”
Funds
Apart from zero prescription policy, cancer infrastructure, diagnostics and investigations, the allocated Rs 1,500 fund will also be utilised to upgrade BMC Hospitals within one year.
In addition to the initiative, BMC plans to allocate more funds for capital expenditure in the next few months and plans to hire 3,000 healthcare experts.
