Govt to form society to run super-speciality hospitals

With no corporates willing to join hands with the health department and no specialised doctors ready to offer their services on contractual basis, the Delhi government has now decided to form a society to run the two super-specialty hospitals in Janakpuri and Tahirpur.

With no corporates willing to join hands with the health department and no specialised doctors ready to offer their services on contractual basis, the Delhi government has now decided to form a society to run the two super-specialty hospitals in Janakpuri and Tahirpur.

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Delhi health minster Ashok Kumar Walia said a proposal was ready and would soon be brought to the cabinet of ministers for their approval.
He said that once the society was formed, it would be easier for the government to hire specialised doctors and paramedic staff through the society to run the two hospitals.

“We have received comments on our detailed proposal from law, planning and finance departments to form a society to run these two hospitals. We hope to bring the proposal along with the comments to the cabinet for its perusal. Once the proposal is cleared we will fast track the process to ensure the two hospitals become operational at the earliest,” Walia said.

The 650-bed Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital at Tahirpur and the 300-bed hospital at Janakpuri were built almost five years ago, but have not started functioning yet.

Though the health department partially started out-patient department (OPD) services at both hospitals, it failed to serve the purpose due to a severe shortage of specialised doctors and other staff.

The two hospitals were built with an aim to run them on public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

The government’s first attempt to get a private partner on board failed due to extremely difficult clauses and later not even a single private company showed interest in joining hands with the government.