Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) or Ayushman Bharat scheme, in its first 10 days, has provided benefits to more than 30,000 patients in both public and private hospitals with Rs 38.1 crore of claims being approved by the government, The Hindu Business Line has reported.

Ayushman Bharat is an ambitious scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide health cover to the citizens of the country.

As on 2 October, as many as 23,287 claims have been approved out of the 23,299 claims submitted. The total worth of the claims submitted was around Rs 45 crore. The average claim size, as per official data, is Rs 19,357 per patient.

The process of empanelling hospitals is going on and a total of 32,814 hospitals have applied for the empanelment, 13,865 of which have been empanelled while others are in the process of empanelment.

On completion of the first week of the scheme, Dinesh Arora, Deputy CEO of Ayushman Bharat, tweeted:

Arora also pointed out cases where Ayushman Bharat scheme has helped poor patients. In one such instance, a poor 67-year-old lady of North Diglipur in Andaman, after being diagnosed with cervical cancer, was flown to MIOT, a private hospital in Chennai, for radiotherapy as there are no provisions of radiotherapy at Islands. She was treated free of cost and transportation cost of the lady was included in the Ayushman Bharat Scheme.

In another instance, a person working as a labourer in Haryana suffered a heart attack four months ago. He had no money to do his angioplasty, which was costing him Rs. 1.5 lakh. Under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, he was operated free of cost in a private hospital in Karnal.