Govt intends to set up mega health city under PPP mode: Minister

Vijayawada: The health sector in Andhra Pradesh has significant potential for private investments with the State government keen on improving healthcare services delivery to all sections of people, said Minister of Health Medical, Family Welfare & Medical Education Satya Kumar Yadav in Orlando, Florida, USA on Sunday evening (local time).

The Minister delivered the key-note address at the biennial conference of the former students of Guntur Medical College, Rangaraya Medical College and Siddhartha Medical Colleges and spoke at length about the challenges and opportunities in health sector in AP.

The Minister stated that between the government hospitals providing free healthcare and private hospitals including the corporate ones, there is a huge opportunity for providing ‘affordable healthcare’ for large sections of people on account of changing health behaviour and rising incomes.

He said that the State government will do its best to improve delivery of public healthcare services to the poor and low income groups including specialty healthcare services. He further said that private hospitals were playing an important role in meeting the demands of the people and ‘corporate healthcare’ was emerging in a big way. The Minister, however, expressed concern that on account of high costs, private healthcare is not accessible to large sections of people.

To bridge this gap between the demand for and supply of affordable healthcare, Minister Satya Kumar Yadav said the State government would like to promote investments in an appropriate manner.

He unveiled the substantial investment opportunities in health sector unfolding in Andhra Pradesh. These include setting up of hospitals in all the 175 Assembly constituencies in the State in PPP mode to enable ‘affordable’ healthcare to all sections of people aspiring for such services.

He gave an example of one such hospital being run by a Trust and visited by him recently which is providing healthcare services including specialty services at reasonable rates and charging only nominal outpatient (OP) fee. This will add 17,500 more beds to the existing capacity. Land will be provided by the State government to these hospitals.

He said a mega ‘Mediciti’ will be developed in the capital region with State government offering land and the Central government extending support for infrastructure development. A wide range of healthcare related institutions will be promoted in PPP mode in the Mediciti.

Ten of the 17 new government medical colleges sanctioned in the State and the attendant teaching hospitals will also be developed in PPP mode opening investment opportunities in a big way.

Health Ministry’s decision to remove the gap between the demand and availability of various diagnostic tools and machines in government hospitals for better services will enable investments in setting up cath labs, CT scans, MRI and cancer diagnostic machines.

Satya Kumar Yadav said that resource constraint was a major hurdle faced by the State government in ensuring accessible and affordable healthcare to people.