Chandigarh health department proposes opening of hospitals in public private partnership mode – ET HealthWorld

“The existing health infrastructure in Chandigarh is of excellent quality but inadequate because of pressure from adjoining states. About 70% to 80 % patients in case of Covid, dengue and malaria issues from adjoining areas,” said UT health secretary Yashpal Garg.

Published medical literature suggests that most of the tertiary and secondary care services are being utilised by people who are middle class and above. The PPP model can include services for profit and not for profit private sector in tertiary and secondary healthcare.

The city has 11 multi-speciality and super-speciality private hospitals, 19 private nursing homes and 224 private health practitioners. There are 20 doctors per 10,000 population.

Part of the services may be subisidised but to make the project feasible, the concession will not be high and not in all services. “The administration will invite bids from reputed hospitals. We will provide land and whoever agrees to share better revenue will get the deal. It is a totally transparent bidding process. However, minimum revenue is to be paid to the administration, eligibility criteria and terms and conditions finalisation is a time consuming and sensitive issue,” said the health secretary.

Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) has an 8.3 acre hospital plot at Rajiv Gandhi Technology Park. It was put to auction in 2017 but couldn’t be sold with the reserve price of Rs 344 crore. It has been identified for the PPP model.

“Besides good private hospitals on PPP basis, we also need to have better health infrastructure in adjoining areas/states to reduce the pressure on Chandigarh. We have written to Niti Ayog and are trying to get some reputed transaction adviser firm to assist,” said Garg.