Page 30 - Forbes - India (January 2020)

Pre-Budget sPecial

sameer pawar

30

Inside India’s

Health Care Fix

Fifteen months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the
Ayushman Bharat health scheme, stakeholders have mixed views.
Is it too ambitious to succeed?

By Varsha Meghani

n a humid afternoon last was totally fine until then,” she says, says Tasneem, whose identity
summer, Tasneem Sayed made shrugging her slender shoulders. has been changed on request.
her way to a student’s shanty When the fever didn’t subside, her On the doctor’s suggestion,
in Kishanganj in northern father, a farmer, took her to the local Tasneem travelled to Mumbai for
O Bihar, bordering West Bengal. hospital where she was diagnosed treatment at the Tata Memorial
The 26-year-old taught English and with jaundice. A sonography further Hospital. Sitting on her bed in the
mathematics to Class 5 students revealed that she had a tumour, the female ward, arms wrapped around
while pursuing her BA alongside. size of two tennis balls, in her liver. her bent legs, Tasneem wears a
“I returned home after tuitions that “We were devastated when the bubble-gum pink dupatta over her
day and suddenly got high fever. I doctors told us it was cancerous,” white hospital overalls. Her face

forbes india • january 31, 2020