Hyderabad, January 09: The statehood question apart, the Srikrishna Committee made critical observations about various other public issues, chief among them being the corporatisation of healthcare in Andhra Pradesh and the negative effects of the Arogyasri programme.
The panel was in particular apprehensive that Arogyasri, though appearing to be a good scheme as it makes quality healthcare in the private sector available to the poor, might in the long run lead to further neglect and collapse of the public healthcare system.
“The scheme has two limitations. First, past experience with CGHS and other schemes indcate that private providers could misuse them for their benefit. Second, it has been argued by experts that it is not an effective way of spending public funds to mitigate health problems,” the committee noted.
On the other hand, it put forth the argument that if the same funds were allocated to primary and secondary care through the public health system, the coverage of beneficiaries would be much wider than Arogyasri.
The panel also pointed out how medical facilities are concentrated in the Hyderabad metropolitan area, saying it reflects an urban and capital city bias and how it had a negative impact on other parts of Telangana. For example, of the 17,000 beds (government) in Telangana, as many as 6,700 are in Hydereabad.
Over the past three decades, facilities in the public sector have not increased in proportion to the increase in population while the private sector grew by leaps and bounds. The first corporate hospital in Hyderabad was established in 1988 and by 2004 their number increased to 16 accounting for 57 per cent of the beds.
“Lack of government or other regulations on minimum standards in terms of staff, facilities, etc and on pricing of services in private hospitals has further widened the scope for profiteering and contributed to rapid expansion of private medicare,” the report said.
On the flip side, the share of the health sector in the state budget declined continously from 6.5 per cent in the fifth five-year plan (1974-78) to 4.5% by by 2005-06.
–Agencies