States are under utilising private hospitals, says AHPI

Despite the Central government authorising private hospitals to operate as covid vaccination centres (CVC), the underutilisation of these entities by state governments is the reason for the poor vaccination drive results. A report by Gautam Debroy.

New Delhi: Even as the central government has allowed all private hospitals to operate as covid vaccination centres (CVC), underutilisation of such hospitals by concerned state Governments seems to be a major reason for poor vaccination drive results across India.

"Although the central government had declared that all private hospitals are eligible for vaccination, final authority comes from the respective state governments," said Dr Giridhar Gyani, director general of Association of Health Care Providers (India) in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat in New Delhi.

"Lack of trust between government and private sector is one of the major reason for such a poor participation of utilisation of private facilities for vaccination," said Dr Gyani.

He claimed that major metros in India are underutilising private hospitals.

From 44, the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) has recently authorised 59 private hospitals to operate as CVC. There are more than 900 private hospitals in Mumbai.

Similarly, metros like Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai ate utilising 10, 57, 20 and 65 private hospitals as CVC. "All these metros have more than 500 private hospitals. In fact, Mumbai and Delhi have 900 plus private hospitals and nursing homes," said Dr Gyani.

He said that Delhi being an exception has been utilising the service of 125 private hospitals against the Government's 56 hospitals.

Initially, the central government had allowed private hospitals empanelled under the central government health service scheme (CGHS), Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (AB-PM JAY), and similar state health insurance schemes as Covid vaccination centre.

Subsequently, it has allowed all private hospitals with an adequate number of vaccinators, adequate space for observation of the vaccinated, adequate cold chain arrangement and adequate arrangements for the management of AEFI to operate as CVC.

Health Ministry statistics show that only 16.53 per cent of vaccination took place in private facilities with states like Uttarakhand, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharastra, Goa among others registering less than 30 per cent vaccination in private facilities.

He alleged that private hospitals have not been involved in vaccination.

"Government must allow a larger number of hospitals for vaccination. In addition, vaccination should be allowed to all people above 16 years of age through the open market strategy," said Dr Gyani.

Referring to the vaccination charge of Rs 100 by the non-government hospitals, Dr Gyani said, "Private hospitals are getting only Rs 100 for each vaccination. They are willingly doing this as a CSR activity."

Covid19 vaccine is being provided to beneficiaries prioritised by a national expert group on vaccine administration for Covid19 (NEGVAC) at private CVC at a ceiling cost of Rs 250 per dose for each person.

This amount includes Rs 150 towards the cost of the vaccine to be remitted to the government and the remaining Rs 100 is for administration and service charges to be retained by the private CVC.

Health Ministry statistics shows that since March 1 to 21, a total of 62.43 lakh dose of Covid19 vaccines have been administered at private CVCs.

Vaccination in private hospitals is free of costs.

"USA doing 3 million vaccinations per day. We have 9 times more population than USA. We have recommended to the government to do 20 million vaccination per day. Ironically, we are not even crossing 2 million vaccination per day," said Dr Gyani.

To date, India has administered 6,30,54,353 doses of Covid19 vaccination across the country.