Central Data Catalog

In India, with private health facilities accounting for majority of outpatient visits and inpatient expenditure, any single health-care delivery model is inadequately equipped to take care of health needs of people. We describe public-private partnerships (PPPs) in health through description of Vadu Rural Health Program (VRHP) in Pune district of Maharashtra. It began its journey in early the 1970s when King Edward Memorial Hospital, Pune started providing healthcare at a primary health unit in Vadu village. Later, it established Shirdi Sai Baba Rural Hospital, a private hospital in Vadu, Pune in 1986, in partnership with the state and central governments. It provided primary health-care services, whereas medical care was complemented by outreach services within the framework of government health programmes. In addition, it provided specialised secondary-level health-care services. At present, the focus is on maintaining a model hospital with linkages to the public health system and neighbouring private health facilities. VRHP has demonstrated that it can serve the health needs of communities through public-private as well as private-private partnerships by providing quality assured health-care services at affordable costs. Though there are other similar PPPs in India in health, they are insufficient and need to be further strengthened, explored and implemented to better serve health needs of people.