Apollo teams up with OYO, Lemon Tree, Ginger Hotels to create 5,000 isolation rooms

Apollo Hospitals on Monday announced a partnership with budget and mid-scale hotel chains OYO, Lemon Tree and Ginger Hotels to set up 5,000 isolation rooms across the country under its ‘Project Stay I’ (Stay Isolated).

In a virtual press conference last week, Apollo Hospitals had launched ‘Project Kavach’, a comprehensive and integrated response plan to fight the spread of Covid-19 in the country.

As part of the project, the healthcare group then announced it would launch Project Stay I, under which hotels and hostels will be modified into isolation rooms with light medical supervision and quarantine. This is aimed at containing the spread of the disease and also to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.

“Project Stay I is an innovative and scalable methodology to use the existing infrastructure to control the spread of coronavirus. Using this methodology, Apollo Hospitals, along with its partners, commits to add up to 5,000 rooms where patients can stay in isolation and not spread it to others,” Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals Group, said in a virtual press conference on Monday.

A combination of self-paying and CSR funding models, Project Stay I is also supported by Hindustan Unilever, SBI, Deutsche Bank and Zomato.

Where five-seven people stay in the same room and share the bathroom, adequate self-isolation cannot be maintained, said Reddy. “For those who can’t afford the cost of isolation, we need to find the capacity to cover the cost. I am happy to share that HUL, SBI and Deutsche Bank are the first three contributors who have come forward to help those people who cannot afford the cost of isolation care,” she added.

She also added that Apollo will not charge anything for its telemedicine network or medical supervision and the medicines are charged at MRP.

While OYO charges ₹1,200 per room, Lemon Tree and Ginger Hotels offer rooms at ₹3,000 and ₹2,000, respectively, which is inclusive of food.

“The CSR funding will make the OYO rooms available either free of cost or at a subsidised cost for those cannot afford them,” Reddy added.

Phase I of the project, with 500 rooms, will start operating from today. The first set of isolation rooms will be rolled out in Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi.

Apollo Hospitals will add 50-100 rooms every week depending on the demand, government requests, support of local healthcare providers and support for CSR.

“In these difficult times it is important that the private sector joins hands with our government in the fight against Covid-19. Isolation facilities are extremely important to curb the spread of this virus,” Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman and Managing Director, HUL, said at the press conference.

Ritesh Agarwal, founder & Group CEO, OYO, said: “With Project Stay I, the aspiration is to try and make sure over 5,000 rooms can be made available across economy, mid-scale and upper-scale.”

“Since OYO is very focussed on the economy segment, we will try and make sure that we support people by creating isolation facilities as quickly as possible,” he added.

“From the beginning of this crisis, Lemon Tree has supported State governments in offering quarantine accommodation and we are now happy to partner with Apollo Hospitals on Project Stay I,” said Vikramjit Singh, President, Lemon Tree Hotels.

Gaurav Gupta, co-founder & COO, Zomato, said: “We are glad to team up with Apollo Hospitals and other service providers for Project Stay I and lend our services to make sure people in isolation have access to good food. We are enabling our network for the supply and employing our logistics capabilities to facilitate daily meals.”