Kolkata: City private hospitals saw a minor surge as patients started trickling in to seek treatment under Ayushman Bharat a day after the scheme was rolled out in the state on Sunday, even as technical glitches and online verification slowed down their admission process. Insurance and help desks set up to assist patients had a busy time as most had been enrolled online and had to be verified before they could be admitted under the new scheme. Five-six leading hospitals in Kolkata received around eight-10 Ayushman patients on Monday.Lalita Mandal (51) was one of the first to get admitted under Ayushman Bharat at Ruby General Hospital around 11 am. She was admitted with a cardiac condition and will undergo an angiography. The woman from Fatullapur village in Baduria, North 24 Parganas, came to the hospital with chest pain on Monday morning. “The admission process took time as we had to log in to the portal and check if she had been converted to the Ayushman scheme,” said Subhashis Datta, chief general manager (operations).As pre-authorisation was taking time, the management at Belle Vue Clinic sent Lakshman Bor, a 42-year-old fisherman from Tajpur, to the ward. Bor, the first Ayushman Bharat patient for the facility, would be undergoing a bypass surgery.“The registration process was taking a little long as we were told that there were issues in the AB portal. But finally, my uncle will be getting the heart surgery done under Ayushman Bharat,” said his nephew Rahul Kala.Desun Hospital admitted a 72-year-old man from Alipurduar who will also undergo a bypass surgery. “He is our first Bengal Ayushman patient. While it is still too early to assess the full impact of the rollout in terms of footfall, we are closely monitoring the numbers. We expect the footfall to rise progressively as awareness grows and more beneficiaries begin enrolling,” said Desun chairman & MD Sajal Dutta.BP Poddar Hospital admitted Yamuna Mondal (58) with chest pain. Two more are set to be admitted under Ayushman by Tuesday.RN Tagore Hospital Narayana received ‘a few patients’. Their credentials were verified online with the state Ayushman authorities. “They have not yet received a physical card. The beneficiary details are being transferred online from Swasthya Sathi to the Ayushman portal. Once the patients’ Aadhaar card details are entered, the system automatically fetches beneficiary information in the Ayushman portal,” said an RN Tagore representative. He added that some patients turned up with their new Ayushman cards.Charnock Hospital did not receive Ayushman patients but expected a major surge in the coming weeks. “Ayushman offers Bengal patients the true benefit of being an Indian citizen. With Ayushman Bharat cards, they can avail treatment at 40,000 hospitals around the country. This will be a much-needed relief, especially for migrant workers and travellers,” said Charnock MD Prashant Sharma, also the chairman of Indian Chamber of Commerce health committee.On the first day, several other hospitals successfully admitted one to two patients under the health scheme despite technical glitches since morning. Most hospitals said while their dedicated teams were put on the job since the morning, they had to struggle through server issues which got easier by the evening.“Everything new takes a bit of time to get streamlined. Today was the first day and we expect the procedure of taking in Aspatients to be streamlined in a couple of days,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO, Belle Vue.Most of the patients came with the existing Swasthya Sathi card. When the URN number is entered in the portal, the hospital AB desk team gets feedback on whether the patient is eligible for AB-PMJAY or MMSBJ. If not eligible for either, they are being admitted under Swasthya Sathi.“We got a couple of cancer patients with Ayushman Bharat cards or are eligible beneficiary. We are hopeful that the initial hiccups will get eased within a next one week so that we can take in more patients under this scheme,” said Soma Mukhopadhyay, principal and managing trustee, NCRI Hospital.GRAPH·o Rs 5 Lakh Cover: Provides ₹5,00,000 per family every year for medical treatment.o Cashless Treatment: Pay zero cash at empanelled network hospitals across India.o Wide Medical Coverage: Includes around 1,949 procedures like surgeries, diagnostics, and medicines.o Pre & Post Hospitalisation: Covers expenses before admission and follow-up care after discharge.o No Family Size Limit: No restrictions on family size, age, or gender.o Portable Across States: Use the card anywhere in India at any PMJAY-listed hospital.
