The proposed idea to set up dialysis centers at all the major district, area and community hospitals across 31 districts of Telangana state has finally got cleared from the state government on January 20. To this effect, the state government of Telangana had incorporated certain amendments recommended by a technical committee with regard to procurement and establishment of dialysis units under public private partnership (PPP) mode.

Though the idea of setting up free dialysis services at government hospitals popped up long back in 2015, it was blocked due to lack of clarity on procurement, establishment and management of these centers at the government hospitals. However, after long deliberations with all the stakeholders, the state government has finally released an order to go ahead with the proposed Hub and Spoke Model for managing the dialysis units and all the units will be established on a PPP model.

As the state has more than 30 districts, to ensure effective management of the dialysis centers, all the districts have been divided into three clusters to function under the supervision of three nodal centers from Osmanai, Ghandi and Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). Cluster-1 constitutes 13 government hospitals from erstwhile Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar districts, while Cluster-2 constitutes 16 hospitals erstwhile Ranga Reddy Medak and Mahabubnagar.  The third cluster constitutes 10 hospitals located in erstwhile Hyderabad, Nalgonda and Nizamabad districts.

According to a government order, the Osmania, Ghandi government general hospitals along with NIMS will function as Hubs for all the dialysis units providing services to the poor people at various peripheral hospitals at district, area and community level centers. All these centers in the districts are called as spokes, providing free dialysis services.

For establishing the dialysis centres, the government will release e-tenders and the bidders who participate in the process should be the manufacturers of dialysis machines and disposables with 3 years minimum experience in running these services across the world without any major adverse remarks.

At present there are 75 dialysis units across 4 major government hospitals of Gandhi, Osmania, GGH Nizambad and MGM Hospital in Warangal. In addition to this, the government will set up nearly 40 dialysis units at district, area and community centers in the state.