Vijayawada: As part of the measures to improve quality of health services, the state government has determined to make all the hospitals under the Health, Medical and Family Welfare (HM&FW) department as energy efficient to ensure quality of health care facilities to the patients.
The principal secretary for health medicine and family welfare departme-nt K.S. Jawahar Reddy said the department was contemplating implemen-ting energy efficiency measures on a war-footing by replacing old/inefficient electrical appliances with energy efficient app-liances in all the hospital buildings in the state.
In a meeting with officials of Andhra Pradesh State Energy Conservation Mission (APSECM), energy department, Mr Jawahar Reddy welcomed the positive gesture of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE, GoI) for offering grant-in–aid towards implementation of energy efficiency measures in hospitals in AP through APSECM, of AP. The energy efficiency measu-res would be implemented in around seven teaching hospitals out of the total 22 in the first phase through BEE grants and it would be extended to the remaining hospitals through support of Ener-gy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), under ESCO (Energy Services company) model.
He said the growing healthcare needs had led to developing health infrastructure and modern equipments and technologies and these developments had led to higher energy intensiveness in the hospital sector. “Hospitals and health systems can achieve significant cost savings quickly without much upfront investment by reducing energy consumption,” Mr Jawahar Reddy said.
He further said that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had strongly determined to provide quality health services to all citizens of the state and revitalise the health system in the state throu-gh Dr YSR Aarogya Sri/Quality Health for All.
Secretary for energy and CMD APTransco Srikant Nagulapalli assured 100 per cent uninterrupted quality power (24X7) to hospitals by further improving the power infrastructure facilities. He asserted that the energy efficiency measures would help to reduce the peak demand of the hea-lth industry. The EESL was very keen to support AP to implement the energy efficiency project in around 200-250 general hospitals and 1,147 primary health centres.
The APSECM officials briefed the principal secretary of HM&FW that the expected energy savings after implementation of energy efficiency measures in seven teaching hospital buildings shall be 1.32 million units per annum amounting to monetary savings of Rs 95 lakh per annum.
The energy efficiency measures would be implemented initially in Reg-ional Eye Hospital, Government Victoria Hospital, ENT Hospital, RCD Hosp-ital, CHEST &Camp; ID Hospital in Visakhapat-nam, Government dental college in Vijayawada and Government fever hospital in Guntur through grants provided by BEE.
