Jammu, Apr 15: Putting breaks on its move - which would have dashed the hopes of many - the centre has turned down the state government’s proposal to outsource the services at the upcoming Super Specialty Hospital (SSH) at Jammu.  
 Even as the people have been pinning great hopes from the proposed Super Specialty healthcare services at the two major hospitals coming up in Srinagar and Jammu, the state government had reportedly approached the union health ministry to seek approval for outsourcing the services at the nearly completed hospital in Jammu, possibly to some private concern in the field, sources said.
 They said the inordinate delay to start the services at the newly constructed Super Specialty Hospital was a deliberate attempt of state government, as it finds itself incapable to run the services. “Its failure to engage required manpower, particularly skilled enough to operate the highly sophisticated diagnostic machinery and the dearth of trained and specialized doctors and paramedics forced the state government take this step” sources said.   
 They told Greater Kashmir the state government had taken the matter twice with Union health ministry seeking permission to outsource the hospital to the private companies known for health delivery across India. However, the proposal was outrightly turned down by the ministry with the observation that the move would simply put the poor and needy persons in dock as they will not be in a position to meet the expenses at private hospital.
 “Finding itself inefficient to run the Super Specialty Hospital, the state government, through Minister for Medical and Higher Education R S Chib, took up the matter to outsource SSH with Union Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad but it was rejected. Again the matter was taken up by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah with Union government but once again the proposal met the same fate” sources said.
 They added that the Union government   rejected the proposal on the plea that if the services were outsourced or given to a private firm, the marginal population would not be able to avail the benefits due to high cost of treatment.   “The poor patients of state will not be able to get any benefit of super specialty services as the private service providers  would charge on their own terms which are very high as compared to that of the government, ” sources said.
 The centre, sources said, has also told the state that the SSHs opened in other states are also being run by the governments themselves instead giving these to some private agency. “Not even a single state has adopted the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode to run the SSHs, so the JK government was also asked by the Centre to run the hospital on its own, like other states” sources said.
 Pertinently, as project terms the cost of the hospital building and other health infrastructure was to be borne by the centre, while the state government had   to arrange medicos -  including  paramedics  and the  technical staff to run the machines” sources said.
 However, sources said that the state government was likely to move the proposal once again on the plea that the Karnataka government has recently outsourced its Super Specialty Hospital. “The state government is likely to take up the matter once again seeking permission to outsource the SSH on the pattern of Karnataka government” they added
 Despite repeated attempts the Medical and Higher Education Minister RS Chib could not be contacted.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 15 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST