Partnership or Sell-out?
21st February 2013
Interview with JP Mishra, Chief of State Health Resource Center ,
The Hindu, February 22, 2013
Letter to Editor:
Chief of State Health Resource Center has no answer to questions of monitoring quality, timeliness, or access to care for remote areas, and yet he has already accepted bids for private diagnostic centers to “set up shop” on government premises. If they set up shop in a location where government services don’t exist, then this would result in additional services available for the public. Strangely, that does not seem to be a condition of this “invitation.” Apparently we have to wait and see “whether they are interested in setting shops in Bastar, Sarguja etc.” And if they are interested in setting “shops” as he chooses to call these private health services, in locations where government diagnostic labs exist, apparently the public service has to relocate, and its staff must be redeployed elsewhere. Why?
Who has decided that “You cannot run a parallel lab if you have given it to a private player.” Why must the private player be given a monopoly? To whom will they be accountable?
Why does the private player get the first choice of where to operate and the public health staff left to be “redeployed” to locations the private players leave unserved?
How can this be called a “partnership?”
Signals in the Fog 