Urban Health Centres to be handed over to corporates
UHCs to be upgraded as e-UPHCs; specialist services to be provided.
Anantapur: The failure of Urban Health Centres has forced the officials to rework the idea and hand over them to the corporate sector in the state. About 193 Urban Health Centres under the AP Urban Slum Health Care Project, being operated by various NGOs, would soon be handed over to a Hyderabad-based corporate hospital which will also establish a medical college in Rayalaseema. The district-level medical and health authorities are all set to take over the centres from the NGOs.
The commissioner of He-alth and Family Welfare will hand over 193 e-UPHCs to a ‘Total Service Provider’ for operation and maintenance. Further, the Union government has approved upgradation of all the 193 centres as Urb-an Primary Health Cent-res in the ROP for the year 2014-15 and 2015-16. Each UPHC is provided with ad-ditional human resources including a medical officer, staff nurse, lab-technician, pharmacist, ministerial assistance and supporting staff to work in UPHCs and 5 ANMs will be provided at each centre for providing community services.
About 400 Urban Health Centres were established under AP Urban Slum Health Care Project and they are operating under PPP model with NGOs since June 2000 in 23 districts There were 193 centres in AP. District collectors have entered into agreements with the NGOs for operating the centres for a period of one year ,which will be extended from year to year based on the performance evaluation.
The contract agreements with the NGOs were entered up to 2013-2014. A total of 133 NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) are running 193 UHCs in 13 districts of AP. The Union government launched National Urban Health Mission as a sub-mission under the umbrella of National Health Mission during 2013-14. “The National Urban Health Mission will aim to improve the health status of the urban population in general, are particularly of the poor and other disadvantaged sections. It will do this by facilitating equitable ac-cess to quality health care through a revamped public health system, partnerships, and community-based mechanism with the active involvement of the urban local bodies,” a GO issued by the state government revealed.
After implementation of the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) in the state, contract agreements with the NGOs for the year 2014-15 and 2015-16 for operation of Urban Health Centres (UHCs) were not renewed. The existing service delivery with the NGOs continued without specific orders. Currently, there is no evaluation. The exis-ting UHCs would be up-graded as e-UPHCs with the staff approved in ROP of the National Health Mission (N.H.M.) and th-ey will provide specialist services on tele-mode in a HUB and spoke model.
The services of NGOs are dispensed with and the Commissioner of He-alth and Family Welfare is permitted to undertake administrative control of the centres. “The process of undertaking administrative control is almost complete. But we have not received any instruction about handing over the Total Service Provider,” said Anantapur District Medical and Health officer said. As of now, the government is paying about Rs 1.50 lakh towards maintenance of each centre. Sources revealed the corporate hospital had reportedly quoted Rs 4.32 lakh towards maintenance.