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Business

Changing the culture of private healthcare
By Sonali Siriwardena
The long-awaited opening of Apollo Hospitals, Colombo, has finally come to pass. Initiated in 1995, the project has obtained the backing of a number of local banks and is expected by many to change the culture of private healthcare in the country.

The imposing exterior of the Apollo hospita. Pic by Athula Devapriya

A multi-disciplined hospital with a mission to bring healthcare of international standards within the reach of every individual, Apollo assures its patients the best in technology. But at what cost?

Speaking at a press briefing, Dr. Prathap Reddy, Chairman of Apollo Hospitals Group, stated that their charges would be cost- effective but not cheap. The Apollo management states that their charges on average would be 5-7 percent higher than the other private hospitals.

This, some believe, would diminish the competitiveness of the venture, but the Apollo management states that their objective is to play a complementary role to the other private hospitals, which account for 60 percent of outdoor patient care in the country.

"When we started operations in India other hospitals thought they would have to close shop, but it was not so because we hope to play a more specialised role," said Dr. Reddy.

Apollo has always been a preferred destination by Sri Lankan patients and according to the management ten percent of its patients in India at any given time consists of Sri Lankans. Therefore the opening of the Colombo branch is also expected to save foreign exchange for the country.

A ten-floor complex housed in Narahenpita, Apollo places much emphasis on the supporting infrastructure and hopes to provide professional hospital care.

"We want to ensure that our staff is available for our patients at all times and so we have requested our doctors, including those attached to the Outdoor Patient Unit, to limit their practice to our hospital.

We also currently have around half-a-dozen Sri Lankan expatriate doctors in our team and we hope to attract many more in the future," stated Chandra Shukla, CEO of Apollo Hospitals Colombo.

The government has also given the greenlight for Apollo to set up a nursing school where they hope to train local nurses.

Harsha de Silva, Director in Charge of Private Health Sector Development in the Ministry of Health, welcomes the new hospital as a positive development that will transform the culture of private healthcare in the country.

"I expect Apollo to play a complementary rather than a competitive role to the other private hospitals. When the private sector is doing well, they can learn and refer patients to each other and this also opens the door for the transfer of technology between countries. It will also minimise the burden of government hospitals although Apollo is likely to concentrate more on high cost care," he said in an interview.

The setting up of the Apollo Hospitals School of Nursing in Colombo has been approved by the government. "There is a dearth of nurses in the West and we can easily train these nurses to secure foreign employment.

Hence we can send trained personnel rather than housemaids. The nursing school to be set up by Apollo is one of around nine such private nursing schools which have been approved by the government. We will monitor their syllabus and progress.

Nurses who qualify through these courses will be licence holders on par with registered nurses," said de Silva.

New inflation index
A new inflation index has been prepared by the Department of Census and Statistics on a trial basis.

The Sri Lanka Consumer Price Index will replace the Colombo City CPI (CCPI) whose credibility had been questioned because of its outdated 1952 base.

The geographical coverage for price collection of the new index has been widened to cover 20 districts, except those in the northern province, which includes the urban localities of all selected district towns, the department said in a statement.
The need to select a recent base period and other considerations led to the use of the three-year period 1995-1997 as the base period for the computation of the SLCPI, it said.

The department said the new index will meet the need for a single, high quality CPI with wider geographically coverage which can serve the needs of all users.
The CCPI currently published by the department is the official CPI produced mainly for wage adjustments and covers working class households in Colombo city only.
It is used to determine cost of living allowances payable to government servants, plantation workers and workers in other industries under the Wages Board Ordinance and is also widely used for wage adjustments in the private sector.

In order to maintain the relevance of the CPI and to reflect the latest household spending patterns, a new CPI basket and new weighting patterns should be introduced periodically. Most countries adopt a five-year cycle of changing the base of the CPI.

Org-Marg-Smart ties up with ACNielsen network
Sri Lankan research company Org-Marg-Smart (Pvt) Ltd (OMS) has became a strategic partner of ACNielsen, a market research company.

Janaki Kuruppu, Managing Director of OMS speaking on the partnership said that this was an achievement for the marketing fraternity in Sri Lanka. "As training on research is less in the country, this combination will help in new learning", she added.

OMS was set up in Sri Lanka as a joint venture between Org-Marg Research (OMR), India, and Survey Market And Research Team (SMART) of Sri Lanka. The company since its inception has contributed towards professionalism and innovative approaches to research, introduction of new tools in both quantitative and qualitative research in market research and also social and economic research. The company now positions itself as a "One Stop Shop" for all research needs of local and multinational companies, donor organisations, non-governmental organisations and the government.

The tie up with ACNielsen became a possibility for the local company due to the acquiring of ACNielsen by VNU - a Dutch publishing company which has a controlling interest in OMR, India. VNU is a worldwide leader in media research industry with leading positions in consumer magazines, directories, and information services.

Sri Lankan companies will now have access to some of the latest cutting edge technology and market research tools to enhance their businesses. ACNielsen, with 21,000 employees and annual revenues of more than $1.5 billion, is the world's leading market research firm, offering measurements and analysis of marketplace dynamics, consumer attitudes and behaviour and new and traditional media in more than 100 countries.

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