Recently the central government has sanctioned a special provision to treat blood disorders, under which the patient can get treatment for up to rupees 1.50 lakhs, for the assistance in joint replacement surgeries. People suffering from the sickle cell disorders can now also get costly surgeries of hip and knee joint replacement done for free, under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.
Dr. Vinky Rughwani, director of Thalassamia and sickle cell centre said “patients going through the sickle cell disorder have a need to replace the knee joint or the hip as the disorder weakens these specific body parts.
Usually, the patients are from a financially poor background which makes the operation unaffordable for them as the surgery is very costly. We were demanding to provide assistance to these patients for the surgeriesâ€.
With Vidarbha having a large number of sickle cell patients in the whole Maharashtra the scheme will be really beneficial for them. Despite this, a large number of such patients are being deprived of timely intervention as the surgeries are being carried out only at Government Medical College Hospital (GMCH) and not in the hospitals attached to the state government schemes.
Thalassaemia and sickle cell centre has been following this issue for several months now. The GMCH, Nagpur has already started performing treatments on the patients. But the ratio of patients getting treated to the waiting list is uneven as there is a continuous increase of names in the patients waiting list and all GMCH could treat is just one patient in a day. The doctors are hoping if the state government approves to make special provisions for the patients, the ratio and the waiting could be managed easily.
“The state should add more schemes under which the joint replacement surgeries can be done as there exist just Ayushman Bharat Scheme for all such operations. Jeevandayi Yojana is also a scheme in which the sickle cell treatment should be addedâ€, said Rughwani.
According to him the sickle cell patients need a joint replacement surgery in the age group from 15 to 20 as this is the perfect age for the growth of the body and the body can accept changes.
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