Corporate Hospitals

The emergence of corporate hospitals has led to a massive poaching of medical practitioners from all government as well as private hospitals of the valley. The salary paid at these hospitals is six to seven times more than what government has to offer to these doctors. Within a year or two of these hospitals dropping their proverbial anchors we are seeing their business development executives knocking at the doors of top doctors of the valley and laying out lucrative packages in front of them. To no one’s surprise, the doctors of the valley are lapping down these lucrative packages with it-harms-no-one wicked smiling countenances. For a change, the valley doctors do not have to endure cranky rich patients in gulf countries or abide by stricter compliance in first-world countries and end up earning almost the same amount of money. All fine and dandy, but we can we afford to lose sight of the toxic work culture in these hospitals, the unsatiated desire to earn more and more Return on Investment (ROI) which essentially means that a doctor paid eight lakh rupees monthly salary will have to generate at least twice to thrice business for this amount within the stipulated timeline for which this salary is paid. This leads to unwanted surgeries being recommended, some surgical instruments forgotten in the bellies of patients, tighter timelines in operation theatres, and a die-or-do situation for our privately owned non-corporate hospitals. With the migration of the top doctors to these corporate hospitals it would entail the patients following the course in tow. The consultation fee charged by doctors at these hospitals would at time be twice to thrice the amount the doctors would charge at other privately owned clinics or private hospitals. The doctor, to meet business target deadlines, would be hard-pressed to push for surgeries that in normal circumstances would be avoidable. As a side stroke, this corporate culture would spawn a mandatory health insurance need – health insurance card holders is the lifeline of almost all corporate hospitals in South Asia. This trend would come in clash with the majority of people antagonistic to health insurance schemes due to a particular bent of religious orientation. The government must step in and push timely measures to ensure that the greed of these corporate giants do not end up creating bigger holes in the pockets of a common man. Government must ensure that the poaching of top talents in medicine and surgery is stopped and tougher regulations put in place to that end.