Bengal plans drug buying agency

As a curative measure for the ailing health care sector in the state, the government is planning to set up a corporation to supply quality medicine and equipment to government hospitals.

It has also sent a team of experts to Chennai to draw lessons in this regard.

In order to reduce patient burden in government hospitals, the government is in favour of a major privatisation drive, including privatisation of government hospitals, provided the present fees structure is restored, said Surya Kanta Mishra, minister of health and family welfare, West Bengal.

The government is also planning to replicate the state's first public private partnership health city in Burdwan elsewhere in the state.

To ease the heavy flow of patients from the entire eastern India, Bhutan and Bangladesh to government hospitals in Kolkata, curative and indoor health care should be a domain of private hospitals and government hospitals should concentrate on preventive, promotive and outdoor health care services, the minister said.

Encouraging private medicine store chains like Ranbaxy and Reliance in the state, the minister said private drug manufacturers should invest more in the state.

"In comparison to the the heavy demand of medicines in the state, there are few manufacturers and no major unit other than Bengal Chemical exists in the state," he added. The minister informed that two districts in West Bengal""West Medinipore and Howrah""have recently been declared fully sanitised. Burdwan, Nadia and East Medinipore will also be declared the same soon.

The minister also invited private medical colleges to invest in the state.

"Presently, there are nine medical colleges, and we need at least 19 colleges to cater the needs of the state," he added.

"In the southern states about 40 per cent people depend upon government hospitals, whereas in West Bengal about 90 per cent people in rural areas and 70 per cent in urban areas depend on them. To have such a ratio in West Bengal we need non corporate private sector involvement in healthcare," Mishra said.