New Delhi: Days after the Indian Medical Association — the apex doctor’s body in the country — submitted a list of 382 doctors who had succumbed to Covid-19 in the line of duty, the government told the Lok Sabha Friday that the families of only 155 doctors and healthcare workers had received the insurance amount promised under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package for Health Workers Fighting COVID-19′.
Of the 155 healthcare personnel whose families received the insurance amount of Rs 50 lakh after their deaths, 64 were doctors.
In Maharashtra, which is the state worst hit by Covid-19, as many as 21 families received the insurance support — the maximum number in any state.
In Gujarat and West Bengal, 14 families each received this amount. There were 12 beneficiaries in Andhra Pradesh and 10 in Tamil Nadu. The number includes ASHA workers and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs).
The insurance scheme under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package for Health Workers Fighting COVID-19′ was announced on 30 March. The scheme was initially announced for a period of three months and subsequently extended.
No specific scheme for doctors, govt says
“No specific scheme in context of COVID has been proposed for compensation/ job to the next of kin of such deceased Doctors, Nurses and other Healthcare Workers,” Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey said in the Lok Sabha Friday.
This was in reply to questions raised by several MPs, including Trinamool Congress’ Prasun Banerjee, on the government’s policies regarding healthcare workers who died while working on the front lines of the pandemic.
The IMA, however, expressed disappointment at the government’s data that families of only 64 doctors received the insurance amount.
“As of today, 418 doctors have died of Covid and obviously they caught it in the line of duty at the hospitals, clinics where they work. It is very unfortunate outlook of the government when the country is facing a situation that they have not faced since Independence, it has not faced a health emergency like this in a hundred years,” Dr R.V. Asokan, general secretary at IMA, told ThePrint.
“If the government won’t take ownership of 60-70 per cent doctors in the private sector…, how can one fight with one hand tied? No other country has lost such a large number of doctors. Even CDC (in the US) has given a figure of just about 120. The government cannot hide these numbers,” Asokan added.
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Government has no central data on deceased doctors
A few days ago, Choubey had informed the Rajya Sabha that since health was a state subject, there was no central data on the number of healthcare workers who succumbed to Covid-19.
This was severely criticised by opposition parties, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also saying the government was insulting “corona warriors”.
The IMA immediately released a list of 382 doctors who it claimed had succumbed to the disease.
When asked about the far smaller number of doctors who had been given insurance, a senior health ministry official told ThePrint: “The processing and documentation of the insurance is done by the states, so there are different paces at which that happens.”
He added, “Also, while in case of doctors in government hospitals the processing is fairly prompt, many private hospitals move much more slowly on informing the government and completing the required formalities so that the insurance amount can be paid. That slows down the process.”
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