Medicover Group of Hospitals, India is opening a new facility in Bengaluru with an investment of ₹120 crore in June. In the next five years, the company plans to open 4-5 more hospitals in Bengaluru, said Anil Krishna, Chairman and Managing Director of Medicover Group of Hospitals, India.
The new facility in Whitefield area will have a total bed capacity of 300 beds. In tandem with its expansion plans, Medicover will also open another facility in Warangal. Currently, Medicover has a bed capacity of 5,500, and it aims to reach 6,000, with the opening of the two new facilities.
Medicover Hospitals, India, currently has 23 hospitals spread across 16 cities. This encompasses metro and tier-II cities in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. Until 2021, Medicover Group of Hospitals, India, was present only in tier-2 cities. The company is now majorly focussing on venturing into metro cities and serving micro markets within these cities.
Right talent
“The biggest problem with setting up hospitals in tier two cities is getting the right medical talent. Everything will always be diluted, you will not get the top most nurses or top most doctors in tier two cities. Even if someone is good enough, there is no guarantee that he is staying with you for long because in these markets, once you make a name for yourself, you can always open a hospital yourself. This happened to us time and again where we would train our medical force but retaining them became difficult. That’s why we shifted our focus toward metro cities, because the same thing cannot happen here. In the metros, there is a different problem. It’s always poaching of talent by the competitor. But the advantage is that you can always replace the lost talent,” Krishna told businessline.
The organisation has an employee headcount of over 14,000 employees. The projected revenue of the India business for this financial year is around ₹2,000 crore, 8 to 9 per cent of which is expected to come from government schemes.
Krishna established MaxCure Hospitals in 2015. In 2017, Medicover Group, a European healthcare entity, acquired a 49 per cent stake in MaxCure, leading to its rebranding as Medicover Hospitals. It currently holds 64 per cent of the company’s shares.
On the international front, Medicover Hospitals (parent company) operates across 12 countries including Germany, Sweden and Poland, with a listing on the Swedish stock exchange. It is a diversified healthcare chain that has ventured into aspects of lifestyle and healthcare including hospitals, gyms, pharmacies, insurance companies, among others. .
(Reported by BL Intern Nivasini Azagappan)