Private Hospital Sector in Madras City: Some Preliminary Observations

This paper provides a description of the nature of hospital sector, with an emphasis on private hospital sector, in Madras city. It highlights some of the characteristics of the hospital sector, namely its size, distribution, range of services offered, manpower employed, and price differentials for outpatient care. A preliminary comparison of 35 private hospitals suggests presence of price-competition for outpatient care. Type of ownership (within private sector) is observed to have little association with fee for outpatient care, occupancy rates, outpatients served per day, and manpower per bed employed. Private hospitals are concentrated in a few zones in the city area, but outpatient charges are not significantly different between zones with different levels of competition (although zones with greater competition have a higher charge than those with less competition). The study highlights a number of policy relevant issues for future research.