ONE DAY SURGERY CENTER

India has a population of over a billion, a large, jet setting urban population, living in and around the metropolitan and capital cities of our country, are hard pressed for time, believing strongly in the dictum of ‘time is money’, and would not want even a day's absence from work. With the IT and industrial boom in exponential growth of BPOs, this is a fast growing segment of our population. On the other hand, there exists a large part of Middle Income and Lower income group, making up almost 60% of the population. They extend from urban cities to large villages. This segment of population would be looking at affordable surgical care in their city surrounding or in villages too. These patients make up to 60% of the patients attending the OPDs of major city hospitals. The number could vary from a few thousands to millions every year. Roughly half of a billion patients will require secondary surgical care, for which they have to travel long distances from their homes. These centers can be easily set-up in smaller cities and villages, with trained staff from among themselves, to provide surgical care, which has been so far neglected by most agencies. Thus, reducing the influx of patients into larger cities and reducing the cost of treatment of certain surgical ailments.

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The insurance Companies are showing a tremendous interest to tie-up as the cost of medical treatment in the One-Day centre will be 1/3rd of the same in any other hospital.

 

NEED FOR DAY CARE SURGICAL CENTERS IN INDIA:

India has a population of over a billion. The present medical facilities in India compromise of government hospitals, Private hospitals and a number of Nursing Homes. These establishments provide 66500 beds, approximately, which means that there are less than 1 bed for every 1000 persons, these are for all persons, medical as well as surgical cases, if you look at purely surgical cases, then the ration falls even further. This ration is extremely inadequate and is clearly evident from the long waiting list and perpetual denial of healthcare to the needy patients. As a result, the unfortunate ones have to makeshift arrangements, or look for alternate treatment, more often than, not, land up paying far more than what is required in terms of time and money.

The average number of beds per 1000 people in the western world ranges from 9 to 12. Even in adjoining Southeast Asian Countries, the number of Day-care surgical centre beds per 1000 is about 3, whereas in India, the average number of beds per 1000 people is around one. The WHO envisages that an optimum figure to meet the requirement is of the order of 6 per 1000 people. The proposed Day Care surgical centre is an effort to fulfill this wide gap to some extent. The acute shortage of facilities in India would assure high level of occupancy.

The current position of healthcare facilities in India is not only quantitatively inadequate, as mentioned above, it is also far from satisfactory in terms of Day Care surgical centre management, technology and equipment. The proposed one-day surgery centre would introduce futuristic technologies such as LASER and Videoscopic / Laparoscopic surgery. With most modern equipment and state-of-the-art technology, it will not only provide better healthcare facilities but also ensure faster turnover of bed occupancy.

There is fast growing population of patients who are now ready to pay a reasonable amount for assured quality treatment, the percentage of patients totally dependent on free clinics or charities are steadily going down. This is evident by the study done and published which shows that the expenditure as percent of the GDP, from 175 countries shows:

India to be spending 0.9% in the Public sector, 4.2% in the Private sector, totaling 5.1% of the GDP. Whereas, the USA spends 6.2% in the Public sector and 7.7% in the Private sector, totaling to 13.9% of its GDP. India stands 171st in expenditure on its Public health care system. In contrast with the rank of 18th in the world, in terms of expenditure in the Private Health Care sector.

With around 1.5 million tourist flocking to India for healthcare, over Rs. 10000 Crore medical travel value is expected by 2025, a growth of 25% per year. Medical tourism is flourishing like never before. Thus, there will be a pressure to build more hospitals, Day Care Surgery centers in India. The future for the medical projects is undoubtedly bright in India.

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MODERN PERSPECTIVE:

The One Day Surgery treatment is fast becoming popular in India as it has in Europe and USA. With hospitals facing perennial shortage of beds and private hospital charges going beyond the reach of even the upper middle class, the One-Day surgery system has come stay, mostly because of its affordability.

One thing needs to be borne in mind and that is that One day surgery does not mean less care, in fact it calls for more care precision, planning and ability to take quick decisions.

The potential for One day surgery has increased over last few years. The Royal College of Surgeons in England in its ‘Guidelines for Day Surgery’ (1998) states that “Day Surgery is now considered the best option for 50% of all patients undergoing elective surgical procedure, though the population will vary between specialties.” This has now gone up to 75% of elective surgeries in the UK in the current year.

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ECONOMIC SCENERIO IN INDIA:

The Indian Economy has been growing at an average rate of over 8% p.a. for the last three years. The per capita income has already risen to over Rs. 14000/- p.a. the rate of inflation is around 4.6%. The Gross Domestic Product at current price was Rs. 2523872 Crores. The Foreign Exchange reserve of India is 145 Billion Dollars.