The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Plea to increase Floor Space Index for hospitals to cut healthcare costs

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Friday, Mar 28, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Plea to increase Floor Space Index for hospitals to cut healthcare costs

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Increasing the Floor Space Index (FSI) for hospitals will help in reducing healthcare cost in the State, according to Prathap C. Reddy, chairman of the Apollo Hospitals Group.

“The Government of Tamil Nadu should increase the FSI for hospitals and healthcare institutions from the current 1.5 to 5 to bring down the rising healthcare costs and increase the number of beds and healthcare talent pool of the State,” Dr Reddy stated in a release on Thursday.

“The relaxation in FSI will allow hospitals and institutions to create more infrastructure on the same premises. They do not have to invest as much as 40-50 per cent of the project cost in acquiring new land. Instead, they can invest directly in healthcare equipment or human resources to reduce healthcare cost,” said Dr. Reddy, who is also chairman of the CII National Committee on Healthcare.

Dr. Reddy said rising land cost and low FSI meant that hospitals were unable to increase beds on the same premises. They could not keep the healthcare cost affordable, when they had to acquire land for increasing the number of beds.

There is only one bed for every 1,100 persons in Tamil Nadu, whereas the World Health Organisation recommends a ratio of at least 1:500. Hiking the additional FSI to 5, as in Mumbai, will increase the number of beds by 20-30 per cent, Dr. Reddy said. Even in New Delhi and Karnataka, the FSI was 3.

He also recommended uniform FSI across the State, especially to benefit the 20-bed hospitals that constituted 80 per cent of the State’s healthcare services. At the national level, India must double its bed strength of 7 lakhs to meet WHO norms. With 25 million children being born every year, India need to invest Rs. 80,000 crore to create one lakh additional beds every year for the next 20 years, he said. “We cannot import healthcare like cement or steel. Hence, we have to improve our healthcare infrastructure on a war footing.”

The government should provide healthcare incentives on a par with those given to the IT sector, as healthcare had five-10 times more employment generation potential, he said.

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