Jamshedpur/Ranchi: The government's new flagship National Health Protection Scheme announced in the Union budget 2018, which aims to insure as much as 500 million people for up to Rs 5 lakh a year of care, seems to have won the hearts of healthcare sector.

Hospital functionaries in Ranchi called the move pioneering on many levels, enabling economically weaker sections to avail advanced treatment in secondary and tertiary facilities and buffering private heal hubs from pressure to waive treatment costs.

"This budget ensures better healthcare for the poor and lower middle class. It will be more beneficial for a state like ours with a significant tribal and BPL population. Apart from this, reducing the cost of implants is a boon for all," said Dr R.K. Srivastava, acting director of RIMS, the largest state-run hospital.

"It is a landmark decision to provide advanced healthcare to the deprived. Also, it will also put a stop to constant pressure from political and social groups to waive treatment cost for poor patients at private hospitals as the cost would be borne by the government," said Amitav Chatterjee, cluster head of Meditrina Hospitals, Jharkhand.

Meditrina has its footprints in Adityapur near Jamshedpur and has inked a pact Jharkhand government to run the abandoned Hindustan Copper hospital at Mosaboni in Ghatshila subdivision of East Singhbhum and open units at the proposed Medico City at Irba in Ranchi. Currently, nearly 50 per cent of its patients at the Adityapur hospital come from the poorer sections that avail schemes such as Mukhya Mantri Gambhir Bimari Upchar Yojana.

V. Marapaka, facility director of Tamolia-based Brahmananda Narayana Multispecialty Hospital, a unit of Narayana Health, heaped praise on the government for the proposed boom in healthcare and the number of medical colleges. "We welcome the government's decision to provide treatment up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care and to open a medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies. Healthcare will see a qualitative jump," said Marapaka, whose hospital sees at least 65 per cent patients from humble backgrounds.

Dr Alok Roy, chairman of Medica Hospitals Dr Alok Roy Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Dhanbad and Ramgarh, agreed, "More medical colleges will help create new doctors, nurses and paramedics," he said.