The BMC disclosed its intentions of contracting out healthcare services, including supplying and operating X-Ray and MRI machines, at seven civic hospitals.
Civic body mulls contracting out X-Ray and MRI facility at seven hospitals
In continuance with its newly adopted stand of outsourcing basic services, the BMC on Friday disclosed its intentions of contracting out healthcare services, including supplying and operating X-Ray and MRI machines, at seven civic hospitals.
Additional BMC commissioner Kishore Gajbhiye said the administration was mulling a public-private partnership model for running such healthcare services at the hospitals that lacked them.
According to Gajbhiye, hospitals where private hands could be roped in to run the X-Ray and MRI machines initially include BYL Nair Hospital, Byculla, and six suburban hospitals, including Bhabha Hospital (Bandra), Bhagwati Hospital (Borivli), Rajawadi Hospital (Ghatkopar), Cooper Hospital (Vile Parle) and the two other centenary hospitals at Kandivili and Govandi.
The BMC had earlier outsourced works related to water distribution and has proposed outsourcing security and cleaning services at all hospitals.
The genesis of the outsourcing idea, said Gajbhiye, was in the heavy investment these machines and their operation required. Ironically, the BMC in its current fiscal has made a budgetary allocation of Rs1170.87 crore for healthcare upgrade.
Meanwhile, a BMC committee, comprising doctors and senior civic officials, is working out the pros and cons of the proposed reforms and is likely to submit its report in a fortnight.
Gajbhiye clarified that if the public-private-partnership model (PPP) is set in motion, the role of the private players will be restricted to arranging and operating the machinery.
The civic administration will decide on the fees to be charged from patients.
Interestingly, before Gajbhiye put forth the PPP proposal, municipal chief Jairaj Phatak had expressed to mediapersons that while contracting out municipal services resulted in savings, as the private sector driven by profit motive executed the tasks efficiently, the approach had its pitfalls.
Citing the example of Delhi’s failed privatisation experiment with Blue Line buses, Phatak said, “Since the private sector was only driven by profit motive, they could compromise quality.”
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