Mukhyamantri Jeevana Sanjeevani Scheme (Karnataka Free Dialysis Programme)

What is the Mukhyamantri Jeevana Sanjeevani scheme?

Mukhyamantri Jeevana Sanjeevani is the name commonly used for Karnataka's free haemodialysis programme for people with chronic kidney disease. The Health and Family Welfare Department runs it, with the National Health Mission's state unit funding and monitoring the dialysis centres attached to taluk and district hospitals. The core promise is simple: a patient whose kidneys have failed gets maintenance haemodialysis, up to three sessions a week, without paying for the session.

Chronic kidney disease is a slow illness with a brutal economics. A patient on maintenance dialysis needs two or three sessions every week, indefinitely, and in the private sector each session costs money that most households cannot sustain for even a year. Karnataka's answer, in common with the national dialysis programme, was to put dialysis machines inside taluk-level government hospitals so that a patient does not have to travel to a district or state capital three times a week.

How the programme is built

• Dialysis units inside government hospitals, mostly at taluk hospital and district hospital level, so the patient travels a short distance.
• Free sessions. The dialyser, tubing, dialysate and nursing time for the session are borne by the state.
• A fixed weekly slot per patient, so that the same person returns on the same days at the same time.
• Machine segregation by viral status, which is why hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV screening is done before the first session.

Karnataka layers this on top of Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka, the state's health assurance scheme, which covers hospital admissions, and on top of the central National Dialysis Programme, which supplies the model for district-level dialysis units across India.

Who is eligible for free dialysis in Karnataka?

You can be enrolled if:

• You have chronic kidney disease that a nephrologist or physician has certified as needing maintenance haemodialysis.
• You are a resident of Karnataka being treated in a Karnataka government hospital.
• You have completed the pre-dialysis screening, meaning viral markers and current kidney function tests.
• You accept an allotted slot at the dialysis unit and attend it regularly.

Priority in practice goes to below-poverty-line and low-income patients, who are the group for whom the recurring cost of dialysis is otherwise impossible. Government dialysis units are not, however, run as a card-checking exercise: the referral and the clinical need are what open the door.

You are not eligible, or the programme is not the right route, if:

• You do not need maintenance dialysis. The programme is not for a single investigation or for early-stage kidney disease managed with medication and diet.
• You need peritoneal dialysis, a kidney transplant, or intensive care around dialysis. These are handled under other arrangements and usually at tertiary or medical college hospitals.
• You want dialysis at a private hospital of your choice. Free sessions are given at government units; private care must go through Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka at an empanelled hospital, with that scheme's referral rules.
• You are not being treated in Karnataka. Patients from other states should use their own state's dialysis programme.

Nobody is excluded on caste, gender, religion or age grounds. Older patients, who make up a large share of the dialysis load, are specifically the intended users.

What documents are required?

How to apply for free dialysis in Karnataka

1. See a doctor and get the diagnosis in writing. A nephrologist, or a physician at the district hospital, must record that you have chronic kidney disease requiring maintenance haemodialysis. This referral is the single most important paper.
2. Get the pre-dialysis tests done. Serum creatinine, blood urea, eGFR, a kidney ultrasound and viral marker tests for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. The viral markers decide which machine you are assigned to.
3. Go to the dialysis unit of your taluk or district hospital with the referral, the reports, your Aadhaar card and, if you have one, your ration card and Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka card.
4. Register at the unit. The staff enter you in the dialysis register, open a patient file and allot you a weekly slot, typically two or three fixed days a week at a fixed time.
5. Attend your slot from the first scheduled session. Missing sessions without telling the unit can cost you the slot, because slots are scarce and the waiting register is long.
6. Ask about vascular access. An AV fistula is usually created before or in the early weeks of maintenance dialysis, and where that surgery is done and who pays for it should be settled at registration, not later.

There is no online application and no fee. Anyone who asks for money to "get your name on the dialysis list" is not acting for the government.

How much does dialysis under the scheme cost the patient?

The dialysis session itself is free at a government dialysis unit: machine time, dialyser, tubing, dialysate and nursing care are covered. What is not automatically free everywhere, and what you should ask about explicitly at registration, is:

• Erythropoietin injections and iron supplements, which most dialysis patients need for anaemia.
• Routine monthly blood tests ordered outside the dialysis unit.
• Vascular access surgery for an AV fistula or a catheter.
• Travel to and from the centre, two or three times a week. The largest hidden cost for a rural patient, and the reason Karnataka pushed dialysis units down to taluk level in the first place. Some centres operate a transport support arrangement; confirm locally rather than assuming it.

How to check your enrolment and slot

Karnataka does not run a public online dialysis status portal for individual patients. Your record lives at the dialysis unit:

1. Ask the unit for your dialysis registration number at the time of enrolment and keep it with your reports.
2. Carry the patient dialysis card or file to every session; it records dry weight, ultrafiltration and complications.
3. Confirm your next month's slots at the end of each month, since units re-plan schedules when machines go for servicing.
4. If a session is cancelled, ask the unit in writing when the replacement session is fixed for.

Common problems and how to resolve them

• "No slot available." Ask for your name to be entered in the waiting register with a date, and ask for a referral to the nearest centre with capacity. An undated verbal refusal is the thing to avoid.
• Machine breakdown. Units that lose machines run reduced schedules. Escalate to the District Health Officer if sessions drop below the clinically prescribed frequency for more than a week.
• Viral marker report missing. No unit will start dialysis without it, so get hepatitis and HIV screening done early rather than on the day.
• Being asked to pay for consumables. The session and its consumables are covered. Ask for a written bill for anything you are charged, and raise it on

• Anaemia drugs unavailable. Ask whether the drug can be routed through the hospital's drug supply or the Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka package rather than buying it outside.
• Shifting districts. Get a transfer summary from your current unit before moving, including your dry weight and access details, so the new unit can take you on without restarting the workup.

Help and grievance redressal

• 104 — Arogya Sahayavani, the Karnataka health helpline, for information on government health services and facilities.
• 1902 to Janaspandana, the Integrated Public Grievance Redressal System for Karnataka, covering the Health and Family Welfare Department. Grievances can also be filed and tracked online at ipgrs.karnataka.gov.in.
• District Health Officer of your district, for machine shortages, denial of slots and charges levied at a government unit.
• Arogya Mitra desk at the hospital, for questions about routing your treatment through Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka.

A note on names and published figures

Karnataka's free dialysis service is delivered by the Health and Family Welfare Department through dialysis units at government hospitals under the National Health Mission. The label Mukhyamantri Jeevana Sanjeevani is the one used in most scheme listings and in Kannada usage for this dialysis support, and readers searching that name will be looking for exactly this service. Some listings also quote a fixed per-session transport allowance and a guaranteed supply of erythropoietin injections; those specifics could not be confirmed on a Karnataka government page at the time of writing, so treat them as claims to verify at your own district hospital rather than as entitlements. The session-level facts, free maintenance haemodialysis of up to three sessions a week at government dialysis units: are the reliable core of the programme.

Common reasons for rejection

There is no application form to be rejected under this programme, so the real failure points are the moments a patient is turned away, put on hold, or asked to wait before free dialysis actually starts. Each of these is fixable if you know what the unit is checking for.

• No nephrologist or physician referral in writing. A patient who turns up asking for dialysis without a doctor's note certifying chronic kidney disease and the need for maintenance haemodialysis will be sent back to get one first. Verbal history of kidney trouble is not enough for the unit to open a file. Fix: get the referral from the nephrologist or the district hospital physician before going to the dialysis unit, not after.
• Viral marker screening not done or not current. Units will not start a patient on a shared machine without hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV results, because machines are segregated by viral status and a missing or outdated report blocks slot allotment. Fix: get these tests done alongside the kidney function tests, and carry the printed reports, not just a promise that they were done elsewhere.
• Incomplete kidney function workup. If serum creatinine, blood urea, eGFR and a kidney ultrasound are missing, the unit cannot confirm the patient actually needs maintenance dialysis rather than medical management, and enrolment is deferred until the workup is complete. Fix: complete the full panel the referring doctor lists, not just one or two tests.
• No Aadhaar card at registration. Aadhaar is used to enter the patient in the dialysis register and avoid duplicate enrolment across units. A patient without it can be asked to bring it before the file is opened. Fix: carry the Aadhaar card to the first registration visit along with the medical reports.
• Asking for a condition the programme does not cover. Requests for peritoneal dialysis, a kidney transplant, or treatment at a private hospital of the patient's choosing are turned down at this desk because they sit outside what a government haemodialysis unit does; they are not a rejection of the patient's need, just of the wrong door. Fix: route transplant and peritoneal dialysis needs through the tertiary or medical college hospital handling that treatment, and private-hospital dialysis through Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka's empanelled network instead.
• Patient is not being treated in Karnataka. A patient registered and residing in another state is generally directed to that state's own dialysis programme rather than enrolled here, since the taluk and district units are sized for the local caseload. Fix: enrol through the home state's equivalent programme, or if you have genuinely relocated to Karnataka, bring residence proof to support enrolment here.
• No slot available at the nearest unit. This is not a rejection of eligibility but a capacity limit: taluk-level units run a fixed number of machine-hours a day and a long waiting list can mean no immediate slot. Fix: insist on being entered in the dated waiting register rather than turned away verbally, and ask for a referral to the nearest unit with spare capacity while you wait.
• Missing or lapsed vascular access. A patient without a functioning AV fistula or usable access cannot start scheduled sessions even after registration, since temporary catheter access is not meant for long-term maintenance dialysis. Fix: get the fistula created early, as advised at registration, rather than waiting until the first missed session forces the issue.