Government hospitals to be handled in private sector, know what government plans

New Delhi, Jan 2, 2020, Thursday

The central government is working on a scheme to transfer the private sector to the government hospitals located in the districts.

If approved by the Plan, any private institution or individual shall be responsible for setting up and managing a medical college. These medical colleges should be linked to the secondary health care center. The center will also be run by private individuals or organizations.

The NITI Aayog has prepared a 250-page report to link government hospitals with public private partnership model to link existing private medical colleges and newly emerging medical colleges with government hospitals. For this, the opinion of those involved with the scheme has been sought.

A meeting has been convened later this month to discuss the plan through the Policy Commission. The scheme will include government hospitals with at least 750 beds. Half of these beds will be divided into market beds and half beds into regular bed categories. The price of the market bed will be determined by the market rate. On this basis, the regular bed will be discounted.

The reason behind implementing this scheme has been to show that the central and state governments are not meeting the gap which has been made in the field of medical education due to their limited resources and expenditure. The PPP model needs to be applied to enhance health facilities.

The PPP scheme is based on international work, officials say. Private individuals or institutions who have the responsibility of a government hospital will manage and care for the hospital. However, it is not mandatory for states to get involved in this scheme. Those who feel that the state of government hospitals are not in good shape and are short of funds, can voluntarily join the event.