NEW DELHI: The Centre is set to come up with the first-ever all-India census of all private and government healthcare establishments having profiles of all primary, secondary and tertiary care centres under the National Health Resource Repository project. Senior officials in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said the exercise — first thought of last year — is being executed now to understand the “exact standing” of India's clinical establishments.
“Through the survey, all the establishments, government as well as private were asked to provide details such as geo-coordinates, working hours, details of employees and their educational qualification, details of physical infrastructure and, availability of medical services and diagnostic equipment and a host of other details,” a senior official told this newspaper. “We mostly have only the most basic details like number of hospitals and beds and medical staff, but no other elaborate statistics are available.”
The hospitals will be geo-tagged with help from the ISRO. Another official explained that the exercise is now delayed by a few months. “This is an important project to understand where our hospitals, particularly secondary and tertiary care centres, stand. The details could go a long way in fine tuning the policy framework of the PM's Jan Aarogya Yojana.”
Though the Yojana provides cashless hospitalisation for surgeries and medical procedures worth up to `5 lakh to 50 crore Indians, officials admit a lack of health infrastructure will be a hindrance in smaller towns and cities. No wonder that nearly two-thirds of the total surgeries and procedures under the Yojana were carried out at private hospitals so far.