Not-for-profit hospitals need government support: NITI Aayog

NEW DELHI: The NITI Aayog called for strengthening not-for-profit hospitals, with measures like 100% income tax exemption for donations, fast release of dues from government schemes, grants, and allowing them to utilize primary health care (PHC) infrastructure to take health care to the rural parts of the country.

In a study report released on Tuesday, the Niti Aayog found there’s a growing disparity between hospitalisation cases between for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals. Not for profit hospitals are run by charitable or faith based institutions, which charge patients to the extent of meeting their expenses, which the Niti Aayog report stated are kept under strict control by even “scavenging the medical equipment”.

“The not-for-profit hospitals currently account for only a miniscule share of hospitalization cases. The burden of healthcare provision shifts to private hospitals, which generally offer healthcare at a higher cost to the patient. For-profit hospitals account for 23.3% of treated ailments and not-for-profit hospitals account for only 1.1 per cent of treated ailments as of June 2018,” it stated, e noting that public hospitals offering healthcare at negligible cost are overstretched.

It also stated that in terms of hospitalization cases the for-profit hospitals account for 55.3 per cent of in-patients, while the not-for-profit hospitals account for only 2.7% of in-patients in the country. The think tank added that the not-for-profit hospitals are largely concentrated in western, southern and the Northeast India.