Ayushman Row: ‘Baseless Allegations’, Amethi Hospital Refutes PM Modi’s Accusations

Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Amethi refuted PM Modi's allegation that an old man was turned away by the staff because he was carrying an Ayushman Bharat card.

New Delhi: After the Prime Minister accused a major opposition party of preventing beneficiaries under the Ayushman Bharat scheme from availing its benefits at a government hospital in Amethi, the medical director of Amethi’s Sanjay Gandhi Hospital refuted Narendra Modi’s claims. The director said that they have treated as many as 200 patients under the Ayushman Bharat scheme so far, a leading news channel reported.

“It’s a baseless allegation. We have treated 200 patients under the scheme so far,” News18 quoted SM Choudhary, Director of the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Amethi as saying.

This comes in the wake of PM Modi’s allegation that a poor man died after the hospital turned him away as he had been carrying an Ayushman Bharat card accorded to him by the Prime Minister. In response, the hospital acknowledged that the man died at the facility, but denied any connection of the incident with “politics, religion or caste”.

Union Minsiter Smriti Irani on Monday attacked Rahul Gandhi over the death of the old man allegedly after being denied treatment at his hospital. Talking to ANI, Smriti Irani said, “A person died as he was denied treatment at hospital where Rahul Gandhi is trustee, in Amethi just because he had Ayushman Bharat card. Ye parivaar itna ghinona hai ki ek nirdosh ko maut ke ghat utarne ko taiyar hai sirf isliye kyunki unhe apni rajneeti pyari hai (This family can go to any extent to safeguard its throne, can even get an innocent killed).”

It must be noted that while addressing a rally in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior, the Prime Minister exclaimed, “There is a hospital in Amethi whose trustee is a person from ‘naamdar family’, a few days ago a poor man went there for treatment with his Ayushman card, hospital denied him treatment because he was carrying the Ayushman Bharat card given by Modi.” Alleging that a political family was barring people from availing services under the scheme, PM Modi lamented how a poor old man was turned away from the hospital even though he possessed an Ayushman Bharat card.

Ayushman Bharat or the Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) aims to provide health insurance of upto Rs 5 lakh per family every year for secondary and tertiary care and hospitalisation through a network of Empanelled Health Care Providers (EHCP). The scheme targets covering more than 50 crore people in India.