Having realised that the biggest resource for Uttar Pradesh is its over 19 crore population and that there is an urgent need to invest in human capital if the state has to improve its ranking on Human Development Index, and also help the country attain the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, the Uttar Pradesh government has stepped up several remedial measures to salvage the crumbling health infrastructure in the state.
The foremost among them is the initiative to involve the private sector to ensure that healthcare services are optimally delivered across the remotest part of the state.
As part of the strategy for involving the private sector through the public private partnership (PPP) model, the state government has already engaged consultants to explore the possibility and finalise the bid papers for handing over as many as six projects to private companies.
They are: setting up and operating mobile medical units in 20 districts of the state, operating ambulance services in another 20 districts situated close to the highways, handing over 18 regional diagnostic centres to the private sector, handing over the management of urban health centres in six cities to private parties, inviting PPP for managing and running 50 community health centres (CHCs) in the rural areas and for setting up super specialty centres in six cities of the states. Consultancy firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Grand Thornton and EPOS are already working on giving final shape to the bidding documents.
Speaking to FE, a senior official of the health department said that it was for the first time that the state has formulated a policy for handing over core activities in the health sector to the private sector and expressed optimism that initiative would reap rich dividends.
?There is an urgent need to devise a new pattern of public-private partnership in healthcare delivery in order to streamline the public health system and reach the semi-urban and rural areas of the state.? he added.
So far, the state government has tried to reach out to its bulging population through its fairly large public sector health infrastructure comprising of one Super Speciality Institution (SGPGI), 7 government and 4 private medical colleges and hospitals, 190-odd hospitals, 388 community health centres, 823 block PHCs, 2817 sub-block PHCs apart from 20521 sub centres, yet only 9% of the state?s population actually make use of this facility for treatment of ordinary ailments and people mostly have to depend on private healthcare. In the private sector, too, there are four medical colleges and hospitals and 4913 hospitals/nursing homes at the district level in the state. However, despite these, the state has an infant mortality rate (IMR) of 76 as compared to the all India average of 60.