A seven-year-old girl lost her life in a private hospital in Gurugram due to dengue-related complications and the girl’s family was highly charged for the medical expenses.
This has highlighted the government’s inability to provide quality health care and increasing space occupied by the private sectors.
What is the share of private sector in public health system?
The private sector moved in swiftly, becoming the health set-up of choice for all except the poorest.
From 8 per cent in 1947, the private sector now accounts for 93 per cent of all hospitals.
The recent controversy has underscored the need for regulating billing in private hospitals.
What are the concerns with government policies?
Health is a state subject. Thus policy implementation by the state government had a low uptake in improving the public health system.
The Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010 was intended by the centre as legislation for the regulation of hospitals by state governments.
Standard treatment guidelines were drawn up for specific conditions and diseases, to obviate overprescription of drugs or additional costs of diagnostics.
There is neither monitoring nor an enforcement mechanism for the guidelines.
Recently two state governments have formulated laws related to regulating clinical establishments.
The West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Registration, Regulation and Transparency) Act and the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (Amendment) Bill, 2017.
The two acts have penal provisions against doctors who overcharge.
Health insurance has penetrated only 3-4 per cent of the country’s population.
What measures needs to be taken?
The State should consider improve public health through raising the level of nutrition.
The National Health Policy 2017 provides a roadmap for public-private partnerships in healthcare.
The policy recognised that the primary care will forever be in the domain of the government.
It talks of strategic purchasing of secondary and tertiary care from the private sector.
For that to happen, the government should devise an effective regulatory mechanism to drill transparency into the private healthcare system.
