The Andhra Pradesh government has given great importance to the public health sector in its annual budget.
It has allocated Rs 11,419.44 crore to the health department of the state, which is about 5% of the total budget.
Rs 470.20 crore of the above has been allocated for the 108 and 104 emergency healthcare services. As part of that, the government has allotted 439 ambulances at the rate of one ambulance for each mandal under the 108 scheme.
It has also decided to purchase 1,000 vehicles to run mobile clinics across the state.
The state government has also decided to expand the ambit of YSR Aarogyasri scheme. It has decided to include another 1,000 health procedures under the scheme to the existing 1,059 procedures.
The government has also empanelled 130 hospitals from Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu under the Aarogyasri scheme.
It has also allocated Rs 20 crore for the Kanti Velugu scheme, which was launched on October 10 last year. The health department has conducted tests on 69 lakh people in the first phase and 4.6 lakh school children in the second phase, under the scheme.
Keeping the problems of poor people who would not get employment after undergoing surgeries under the Aarogyasri scheme, the state government has launched the YSR Aarogya Asara scheme to provide Rs 225 per day to the beneficiaries of the scheme after their surgeries.
The government also said that it had launched the distribution of smart health cards, and that it would hand over the cards to the 1.42 crore beneficiaries of the state.