Government to pump in US$ 177.22 million in GQ healthcare project

The Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) has emerged as a golden opportunity for the healthcare industry in India. The government plans to invest Rs 750 crore to develop health centres in partnership with health majors such as Apollo Group and trauma care centres like Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), Hyderabad. Nearly 140 trauma care centres will be developed along the 6,500 km long north-south and east-west corridors of the four to six lane express highway.
The health centres will be developed at three levels. Firstly, the government will upgrade existing hospitals along the corridor to the level of multi-speciality medical institutes on the lines of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and PGI, Chandigarh. “The plan is to create one such facility in each state along the quadrilateral,” a senior government official said.
On the second and third level, the government will set up secondary and primary healthcare centres at every 100 km radius. “These hospitals and healthcare centres are slated to be developed over the next two years. The ministry of health will bear 90% of the costs,” he added.
The ministry of health plans to invest around Rs 730 crore on the golden quadrilateral health project. The ministry of road transport and highways will also chip in Rs 14 crore to provide 70 ambulances this fiscal and an equivalent number the year after.
The trauma care division of Apollo hospitals has expressed interest to run these facilities that will be developed by the government. EMRI, a Hyderabad- based trauma management centre which runs fully equipped ambulances to reach trauma victims within minutes. It also runs a call centre to cater emergencies in Andhra Pradesh. The proposed centres will not only handle medical emergencies on the golden quadrilateral but also provide much needed health services in the hinterland.
Thus with government and private players joining hands, large stretches which hardly had any medical facilities will become accessible to the Indian health industry.