The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Make healthcare affordable, hospitals told

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 09, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Make healthcare affordable, hospitals told

Staff Reporter

Workshop on hospital accreditation standards under way

MEET ON STANDARDS: Usha Ganesh, Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, and Y.P. Bhatia, chairman, NABH, at the workshop on `Hospital accreditation standards,' in Bangalore on Friday. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

Bangalore: "Health is the key to sustained development and economic growth," according to Usha Ganesh, Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare. She was addressing a workshop on `Hospital accreditation standards' organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) and the Indian Healthcare Federation. The two-day workshop is aimed at creating awareness among hospitals and healthcare providers about the standards set by the NABH and the CII, which provide a benchmark for quality assurance and improvement of hospitals.

In private sector

She said that while a large number of healthcare facilities were available in the country, they had to be made affordable to all sections of the population considering that 80 per cent of healthcare services were being provided by the private sector. As a growing economic power, the country should rid itself of malnutrition, infant and maternal mortality and diseases such as HIV/AIDS that acted as impediments to growth.

"Today, India has 1.50 lakh `medical visitors' because of our advances in the healthcare sector. It should soon become a favoured destination for the world as it already offers low-cost, high-quality health services," she said.

So the accreditation standards should focus on achieving excellence not only in the private sector but also in the public sector, she said.

Periodic revision

NABH chairman Y.P. Bhatia said hospital standards should be revised every two years based on international standards. The standards would focus on patient safety and quality of patient care, he added.

Aditya Bahadur, member, CII, said, "The CII provides the Government with recommendations for the healthcare sector, apart from catering for the infrastructure needs of rural areas, such as drinking water facilities, garbage disposal and a host of other projects," he said.

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