APNA to come-up with Code of Conduct for Private Hospitals in the State
Hyderabad, July 06, 2013
Andhra Pradesh Private Hospitals & Nursing Home Association (APNA) would start internal discussions for framing a Code of Conduct for its private hospitals members in Andhra Pradesh to promote the concept of business responsibility. The code of conduct would be based on the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental & Economic Responsibility of Business (NVGs) released by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in 2011, announced Dr. RS Saluja, State President, APNA while speaking during an Interface Meeting-“Evolving Responsible Private Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Sector through Multi-Stakeholder Discussion”, organised by CUTS International. He added that APNA and Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS-International), a civil society organisation based in Jaipur, would work together on this issue.
He further stated that in order to promote the concept and ensure the adoption of business responsibility in both the sectors, it is necessary to have clarity about definitions of and distinction between ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ and ‘Business Responsibility’ among the private hospitals and pharma firms in the state’ .
He observed that being a responsible business entity implies taking care of all aspects related to production, marketing and distribution of good and services produced by the businesses. He emphasised the need to create awareness and build capacity of private hospitals and pharmaceutical firms for becoming more responsible in their conduct and congratulated CUTS for taking the initiative of promoting business responsibility among private hospitals and pharmaceutical firms.
Welcoming the participants, Rudra Shankar representing CUTS mentioned that in order to achieve the objective of sustainable growth in the long term, it is required for private hospitals and pharma firms to adopt responsible way of doing business. However, there are certain challenges facing uptake of responsible business and it is imperative to evolve a discourse between the key stakeholders related to both the sector, in order to overcome these challenges. He further elaborated that through this meeting Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) and key actors would try to comprehend difficulties faced by the private hospitals and pharmaceutical firms in becoming more responsible. Understanding these limitations would allow preparation of a roadmap for promotion of better business in the sectors at the state level.
KVSN Gupta, Assistant Director, Drug Control Administration, Ministry of Health, Govt of Andhra Pradesh, emphasised that there it is important to improve the communication between the key stakeholders in both the sectors. Further, I Raghunatha Swamy, Joint Chief Environmental Engineer, Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board, lauded the effort being made by CUTS for promoting the concept of business responsibility. He stated that such activities would be beneficial for both industry as well as the community at large. Dr. Kiran Paryani, Secretary, Indian Medical Association (IMA-AP) was also present during the meeting, provided his opinion on ways to improve understanding between the state regulators, private hospitals, pharmaceutical firms, associations and other relevant stakeholders. Informing to the house, he said that IMA as an association has always tried to promote ethical conduct from the part of its members.
The event marked an important development in terms of preparing a blueprint of a responsible private healthcare and pharmaceutical sector at the state level. The participants representing various stakeholder groups such as state regulators, pharma association, medical association, pharma firms, civil society etc. provided their inputs for mitigating the challenges creating obstacle in the way of adoption of responsible conduct and outcomes it would ultimately lead to.