Says, Sister Sneha, Executive Director at Holy Spirit Hospital, in an email interaction with Ekta Srivastava, Health Technology

What is the concept underlying Holy Spirit Hospital? Any model that you emulate?

The guiding principle of Holy Spirit Hospital is to provide affordable medical care to people of all classes of society, without any discrimination. And this care is given in a spirit of compassion without any compromise on the quality of its services

Our model works on a unique concept wherein we have both paying (20 %) and charitable (80 %).The revenue generated from paying patients is used for subsidizing the charitable patients. The profit generated is put back into the hospital and the same is used for supporting our strong outreach centres, which is a unique model.

The vision is far sighted from any other Hospital, not only in Health services but also in Environment friendliness, which is evident from our water conservation system of rain water harvesting, in-house Biogas plant for our kitchen & using BEE labelled equipments.

What are the centres of excellence at your hospital?

We believe that action speaks better than words hence from being the 46^th hospital in India, & 4^th in the city of Mumbai to be accredited by National Board of Hospitals & Healthcare providers (NABH). Being the 2^nd hospital in Mumbai to be awarded Clinical Excellence in Nursing by NABH, all speaks of our approach to Quality Healthcare for all at an affordable cost.

Our core attention is towards tertiary care in Cardiology, Cardiac surgery, Laparoscopic surgery. High end Cancer care is our strength. One would find very few hospitals wherein once you walk in, you need not go anywhere else. We care from cradle to the grave.

In today’s Corporate culture of Healthcare we realised that most hospitals are catering to high end surgeries, the old being neglected, our 26 bed ICU caters to a lot of such Geriatric patients, a concept still to catch-up in India.

What are the technological advancements your hospital has introduced lately in different verticals? Your core strengths?

Our Aim is to give the Best of Quality at Affordable cost. Each department in the hospital is at par with the latest technological advancement in the field of Medicine.

To name a few

Radiation Oncology: Rapid arc from Siemens ( 2^nd Installation in Mumbai)

Laboratory:    Orthovision for Blood Banking ( 1^st Installation in Asia)

Advia 2000i Siemens ( 2^nd installation in Mumbai)

GeneXpert, Cepheid ( 4^th   installation in Mumbai)

Doctors and patients are highly impressed with our cleanliness, personalized care, privacy of the patient and ultimate positive outcome.  Community health is again one of our Core strength; it’s a unique amongst hospitals, with 5 outreach centres & 5 mobile clinics.

What’s your vision for Holy Spirit Hospital?  How affordable is the hospital for Indians? 

My vision for Holy Spirit Hospital is that it continues to strengthen and improve on its basic goals, i.e. providing excellent medical care in the broad specialities, with compassion and the best of nursing care. The excellence of other departments like critical care, cardiology, nephrology, neurology, oncology and diabetology should be maintained and enhanced. A greater thrust on academics and research will help in its growth as a centre of not only good medical care but also of learning.

The hospital is affordable to people of all class, our rates are reasonable, we indulge in ethical practices, and minimum investigations advised to the patient majority of our patients are getting charity in some or the other form.

What are the roadblocks and challenges in Indian healthcare?

Though Indian healthcare is progressing at a rapid pace to improve our Global Healthcare ranking, there are inherent challenges and a lot which needs to be addressed.  It is both challenging and expensive to try to obtain the goal of universal health coverage in a country where unemployment and poverty is burning issue.

Most of the population resides in rural part of the country.  Rural population, have less access to the modern medical treatment and depends heavily upon government medical facilities, which is abysmal.

The Urban healthcare is also not in a better position despite technological strides and availability of good doctors.  There is a lack of standardization amongst the hospital.

The major problem in urban areas is overcrowding and the rise in the life style related disease patterns.

Challenges:

• Restricted insurance policies prevalent in India
• Health care cannot be provided free of cost in entirety.
• Change in laws which are biased towards private & government run hospitals.
• Increased gap between rising costs of goods and delivery of services at an affordable price

How important is insurance in making healthcare affordable?

Besides the lack of overall healthcare infrastructure, the second most important influence on India’s healthcare industry is its lack of a medically insured population and high out-of-pocket expenditure (71.13%). Less than 20 percent of Indians are covered by policies. In other words, out-of-pocket expenditure comprises major share of expenditure on health care.

In such a scenario, healthcare services will receive a boost only if

• the burden of out of pocket expenses is reduced by a hundred percent coverage of the population with health insurance.
• The public health infrastructure & services are improved in urban & rural areas.
• Emergency health services are categorised and given priority planning and implementation, countrywide.

What are your expectations from the new government? Will it transform the healthcare sector?

Well, we do not need a transformation but a brick by brick reinforcement of the existing healthcare services on a priority basis. What we expect from the Govt is incorporating the clinician’s experience and suggestions to implement rational health plans because healthcare is a dynamic industry which requires inputs from the care givers and the healthcare providers.

There is no clear indication about what the present government’s stance with regards health care is. However, considering that it is a market oriented government, it is likely that greater impetus will be given to the growth of the private health care system. It is less likely to spend substantially more on the public health care system.

The present government is planning to roll out the world’s largest universal health insurance programme for its citizens. Budget for 2017 must allocate more money for Healthcare. The sector is in dire need of funds to improve infrastructure and to increase capacity.

How is the flow of international patients and how good is medical tourism at Holy Spirit Hospital? Your suggestion to make India a healthcare destination? 

We get a good number of patients from abroad; proximity to the airport makes us an ideal hospital for any emergencies. Most of our patients come by word of mouth publicity. We don’t market ourselves, but once the come they get impressed by our Green Oasis of healing in this concrete jungle.

India has the potential to become the Healthcare destination. Standardization, Accreditation & Transparency in the system, besides High end technology is the need of the hour. We have great medical expertise and the cost of care is a small fraction of that in many developed countries.