subject: Incentives And Rewards - Incentives Anticipated For Hospitals In Indian Slums [print this page] Incentives And Rewards - Incentives Anticipated For Hospitals In Indian Slums
Health & Family Welfare matters are often neglected in India, but the Congress government intends to change that. Most of us know India poor from Slum Dog Millionaire, or images of shanty towns with devastatingly poor sick people being helped by Mother Teresa. What we don't know is that this might not be the true picture after the boom of the Indian silicon recent years. The money is there but the need to focus on the sluggish health conditions is there too. This is the scenario in which the Health Minister has shown his consent to start a incentive scheme focused on the hospitals working for the extreme poor.
Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is known to have sent a proposal to the Finance Minster to start this new initiative nation wide. The figures shown in the report attached show the total neglect of the health facilities even in urban centers for the low income groups. The report anticipates that with this new initiative more people will be able to afford the better facilities near their home. While the status of different diseases is discussed in detail in the proposal, the most worrying is the rise of few alarming ones.
The Planned inventive is focused for working in two fold. The first is the creation of the institutions in areas with worst health records, with the help from the private sector. This initiative will be helped with the subsidy and initiative especially if the hospital is run and managed by the poor or marginalized communities.
The allocation of the capital and periodic subsidy for the project has been requested from the Finance department. Few critics from the private hospital system have shown their concerns about that the start of these initiatives might damage their business. What the critics are not able to address is that this initiative is focused in the areas with no electricity or toilet conditions in many cases. Such people are already not able to afford the private help in any case.
The Finance Minister has given formal statement on this in the Parliament as well. This scheme is said to start simultaneously in both the urban and rural areas with some population requiring health assistance. The Incentive infrastructure, and the establishment of the data base for the Incentives And Rewards ground work is said to start in few weeks. Some opposition critics see this as another tactic to win over the disgruntled communities in the states with poor health conditions.
