Healing at Every Doorstep: Gujarat’s 10,280 Ayushman Mandirs Bring 38 Lakh Reasons to Smile

Gujarat has created a new gold standard in public health by operationalizing more than 10,280 Ayushman Aarogya Mandirs within the state during 2024, providing affordable, comprehensive care to millions. This success has translated into more than 38 lakh beneficiaries availing quality health interventions, representing a huge leap in the healthcare outreach of the state.

Key Highlights

Gujarat's 10,280 Ayushman Aarogya Mandirs have now become a strong network, comprising 1,484 Primary Health Centers, 7,717 Sub-Health Centers, and 417 Urban Primary Health Centers. These centers are aimed at making preventive, promotive, curative, and rehabilitative health care services accessible to the community, making primary health care universal and free.

The Ayushman Aarogya Mandirs extend beyond the conventional care by providing services for non-communicable diseases, mental health, oral, eye, and ENT treatment, and first-level emergency and trauma care. Free diagnostic services and essential drugs are also offered, and hence the healthcare is made accessible and affordable.

The efforts of the state have witnessed more than 38 lakh citizens availing the increased health infrastructure and services in 2024, which is a remarkable improvement in the public health outcomes and patient satisfaction.

This program is a part of the overall Ayushman Bharat mission, which has the goal of revolutionizing India's healthcare system by setting up 1.5 lakh such health and wellness centers across the country and offering health insurance cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care.

Gujarat's achievement is midst of challenges at the national level, such as the withdrawal of many private hospitals from the Ayushman Bharat program because of reimbursement rate concerns and delayed payments. In spite of these challenges, Gujarat's public health infrastructure has proved to be strong and continues to grow.

Ayushman Aarogya Mandirs have emerged as the backbone of Gujarat's health delivery system, whereby even the weakest sections of the population enjoy access to basic health services without causing them financial distress.

Gujarat's Ayushman Aarogya tale in 2024 is proof of the state's dedication to universal health coverage, serving as an example to other areas as India moves toward comprehensive, equitable healthcare for everyone.

Sources: ANI News, Devdiscourse, Official Ayushman Arogya Mandir website