Jammu, Apr 23: Adamant over privatization of the health sector in the state, Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to go ahead with the proposal to outsource five government run hospitals and re-approach the union health ministry for the permission to hand over the Super Specialist Hospital Jammu to a private company.
 Reliable sources claimed that the government mulls to outsource five hospitals - Chopra Nursing Home, Gandhi Nagar Hospital, Jawahar Lal Nehru Hospital Rainawari, Nursing Home Gupkar Road, and Sanat Nagar Maternity Hospital on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
 “All these institutions are state funded and state has the power to take a decision in this regard”, sources said adding, a high level committee constituted by the government is examining the proposal to work out the terms and conditions and other formalities.
 However, with regard to the upcoming Super Specialty Hospital Jammu the government has decided to approach the union health ministry with the request to reconsider its decision. The ministry had turned down the proposal to outsource the upcoming hospital on the ground that it will be against the people, who are expecting better health care facility at a low cost.
 Till the proposal of PPP mode is approved by the Central Government finally, the fate of two SSHs is likely to hang in balance, sources said. They added that state government was mulling to engage some private players in the field through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode to make operational the state of art SSHs at Jammu”, sources claimed adding, “However, its failure to get nod from New Delhi is causing inordinate delay as the Union Government apprehended that green signal to PPP mode would set a bad precedent for other states also as no other state has so far desired to handover a government run hospital to any private company”.
 The state was unable to take a unilateral decision in this regard in view of the fact that the hospital is funded by the union health ministry.
 Admitting the fact that the government will once again approach the union ministry, Minister for Medical Education R S Chib said that the decision was taken in view of the various facts including shortage of funds to run the hospital and the insufficient man power.
 “Ultimately, the SSHs in the state is to be run by the Government Medical Colleges of Jammu and Srinagar but we need to outsource it for initial years as our people will not be able to handle the sophisticated machinery and techniques”, he told Greater Kashmir.
 He said that the state was not in a position to engage highly trained and specialized doctors within given pattern of salary.
 He, however, claimed that the government will ensure that the treatment cost for the common people remains low. “The private parties will have to agree at the terms and conditions of the state government. As far as prices of the medical services are concerned, the rates would be constrained within a reasonable limit,” he added.
 “They (private companies) will watch their interest and we will watch the interest of the people”, the minister said.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
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