'Public-Pvt Partnership best to provide healthcare'

Hyderabad, Oct 9: Andhra Pradesh Principal Secretary Health, P K Agarwal today emphasised the need for forging Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the health sector to provide quality healthcare to the people of the country.

Addressing the gathering at a conference on Healthcare Services under National Service Sector Conclave 2007, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, he said there was a divide between capital and technology historically, but this gap should be bridged through the PPP model.

Mr Agarwal said the Andhra Pradesh Government had taken a few steps in forging PPP model in the healthcare sector and the Government had provided assistance worth Rs 250 crore under the Chief Minister's Relief Fund during the last three years, benefitting nearly 70,000 patients.

He said there was scope for investments worth Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 6,000 crore in the healthcare sector in the State.

Chairman of the CII National Committee of Healthcare and Apollo Hospitals group Pratap C Reddy stressed the need for improving the number of professionals in the health sector as there was a demand for professionals, including medical experts, paramedical and nursing staff.

He said there would be a deficit of over 40,000 million professionals by 2030 all over the world and of this, there would be shortage of 18,000 million in healthcare sector only.

Dr Reddy urged the Andhra Pradesh Government to take steps to increase the strength of nursing staff by setting up more nursing training institutes in the State.

CII State unit Chairman Pradeep Dhobale said one of the biggest benefits of PPP was the economies of scale associated with it and added values of efficiency and effectiveness. The fact that over 56 per cent of the rural medical needs were met by the private sector pointed to the need for creating synergy between the public and private partners.

UNI