Though the state has been relatively unscathed in comparison to Kerala and Maharashtra, for instance, the initiative is as bold as it is timely; it does envisage a remarkable degree of collaboration between frightfully expensive private treatment ~ essentially for those who can afford it ~ and an affordable state sector, albeit under considerable pressure of the forbidding crowd.
(File Photo: IANS)
Thursday’s announcement by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on a private-public partnership to fight the novel Covid-19 pandemic in West Bengal is no less a novel initiative in healthcare.
Though the state has been relatively unscathed in comparison to Kerala and Maharashtra, for instance, the initiative is as bold as it is timely; it does envisage a remarkable degree of collaboration between frightfully expensive private treatment ~ essentially for those who can afford it ~ and an affordable state sector, albeit under considerable pressure of the forbidding crowd.
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As a praxis in the face of a pandemic, the initiative deserves warmly to be welcomed. And so it has been by doctors on either side of the divide. The initiative will supplement the invocation of British India’s Epidemic Dideases Act (1897) after 123 years and the setting up of a Rs 200-crore corpus fund in Bengal that has been put in place without pump-priming by the Centre.
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The Chief Minister has now appealed to the private facilities to contribute. This is the first move to involve the private healthcare sector in the fight against Covid-19. Considering the resources of hospitals in the private segment, this PPP venture does have the potential to be a pathfinder, if earnestly executed.
Not wholly unrelated is the decision to post one ~ in some cases two ~ IAS officers in every district to monitor the afflictions and the progress of treatment. The micro-level involvement of the bureaucracy will hopefully militate against the time that is spent on connectivity ~ from the backwaters of Bengal to Nabanna and thence to Swasthya Bhavan in Salt Lake.
“We are in this together, we have to take it up as a challenge, fight together and succeed together,” was the Chief Minister’s exhortation to the medical fraternity and the administration during Thursday’s meeting with stakeholders at Nabanna.
An ailment knows no frontier between nations. If that is the signal emitted by the virus, the identity of the physician ~ public or private ~ is of lesser moment in the overall construct. The matrix, as spelt out by the Chief Minister, who has Health under her belt, envisages that both sets of doctors will function under the state’s umbrella.
Reports do suggest that so forbidding an affliction as Covid-19 cannot be countered by the government alone. Hence the imperative to involve the private facilities. True there has been an increase in the number of ventilators, beds and isolation wards in state hospitals, but a woeful gap persists in terms of burgeoning demand and dwindling supply of masks, gloves, hand sanitisers and thermal guns.
Altogether, the plan of action envisages a commendable degree of cooperation considering that the next three or four weeks will be vital in terms of the spread and medical attention. The guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research are eagerly awaited by West Bengal’s medical fraternity.
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