Sri Lanka’s private healthcare sector actors along with insurance providers and politicians could take a leaf from their Indian counterparts on how to provide a better health service economically, said Managing Director, MIOT International, Dr. Prithvi Mohandas.
MIOT International is a 1,000-bed multidisciplinary quaternary care hospital in Chennai, India.
“In India great emphasis is laid on the medical sector as the country needs a healthy population to increase economic growth,” he said.
Due to this there is a strong government medical sector which is also funded by insurance.
Various political heads such as Chief Ministers also have their own medical funds, similar to Sri Lanka’s Presidential Fund.
“Due to these it is correct to say that the Indian population today has over 80% coverage by some kind of insurance scheme.
“A patient has the option to seek medical treatment in a government hospital or even in a private medical care facility due to this factor.
“The private hospitals are also keen to accommodate Government sector insured patients and make provision for 30% of Government insurance patients to be admitted and treated.
“Though we don’t make a profit from this segment the insurance partly covers our cost and the balance we consider it as a CSR initiative,” Dr. Mohandas said.
He said that Government sector doctors are not encouraged to do private practice until they retire.
When asked if they have any invest plans in Sri Lanka, he said they already operate a satellite centre in Colombo.
“Here, we identify patient aliments and then take them for advanced surgery to our facility in Chennai. We have recently invested to provide better services at this centre,” he said.
He said that some of the medical sector laws are very tough and drives away foreign investors to this industry. “Firstly, you cannot hire Indian doctors to practice here and same goes for medical staff as there are huge amount of red tape. But this is not so in other countries where we have invested.”
He said that MIOT has now introduced its latest revolutionary procedure, Genicular Artery Embolisation, a minimally invasive, pinhole procedure that reduces knee inflammation and provides pain relief to patients with severe knee osteoarthritis.
Offered by MIOT’s Interventional Radiologist, Genicular Artery Embolization (GAE) is performed without open surgery, does not require general anaesthesia and leaves no scars, allowing the patient to be usually discharged within 2 days of the procedure.
It is recommended for patients who are experiencing severe pain due to knee osteoarthritis but are not considering total knee replacement surgery due to young age, other comorbid conditions or fear of undergoing surgery.
He said MIOT International was set up by his father in 1999 and today has over 60 specialists and 250 full-time doctors, on a 14-acre campus providing exceptional care to patients.
“We believe that the doctor profession is a full-time job and they should be near the hospital and we provide accommodation for them in our own facility,” Dr. Mohandas said.
MIOT International has been providing healthcare services to patients from Sri Lanka for over a decade.
