The Telangana Health department is moving towards a major revamp of the Integrated Hospital Facility Management Services (IHFMS) to address persistent gaps in sanitation, security and patient support services across government hospitals, with a significant increase in per-bed tariff and manpower strength on the anvil, according to Director of Medical Education (DME) A. Narendra Kumar.
IHFMS is a government-run outsourcing system that manages non-clinical services in government hospitals, including sanitation, housekeeping, biomedical and general waste disposal, security, patient care assistants, pest control and related facility services. Under the model, hospitals pay a fixed per-bed tariff to a single agency, which in turn deploys a prescribed number of workers per 100 beds to ensure cleanliness, safety and basic patient support
Under the existing IHFMS framework, hospitals have 45 outsourced workers per 100 beds, comprising 19 sanitation workers, 13 security personnel and 13 patient care assistants. Dr. Narendra Kumar said the government is now planning to strengthen this structure by increasing manpower, revising qualification norms and raising tariff rates to reflect rising operational costs.
