The Bangalore-based Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals (NH), which currently has 14 hospitals with 6,000 beds in seven States, is planning to invest nearly Rs 5,000 crore on setting up a
chain of 100 low-cost speciality hospitals and at least three more health cities in the country.
The low-cost hospitals will add 30,000 beds in five years. The company will invest Rs 25-30 crore on each of these hospitals, using prefabricated construction materials. “The first such hospital is being built by L&T in Mysore. We want to prove that a state-of-the-art, 300-bed multi-speciality hospital can be built for $6 million to $7 million (Rs 35 crore) as against estimates of $25 million,” Dr Devi Shetty, Chairman, said here on Thursday.
These hospitals will be opened in cities with a population of between five and 10 lakhs. Nine such projects will be operational in the next 18 months.
After Bangalore, the company’s second super-speciality Health City complex, offering all healthcare facilities at one place, is coming up on a 37-acre plot in Ahmedabad. With a total investment of Rs 600 crore planned in five years, it will have 5,000 beds in three-four phases, besides a medical college that will admit 200 students from poor families, nursing and paramedical institutions.
In the first phase, inaugurated on Thursday by the Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, NH has provided 300 beds at a cost of Rs 110 crore. “Economy of scale, sharing infrastructure and expertise reduces our cost of operation and other expenses,” said Dr Shetty.
About half-a-dozen more hospitals will be established in the same campus, Dr A. Raghuvanshi, Managing Director, told Business Line . “We are also planning to set up two more health cities, in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, with similar investments.”
Dr Shetty said India needs to perform 25 lakh heart operations annually but is able to operate only about 90,000 patients. “We want to make India the first nation to dissociate healthcare from prosperity by providing ultramodern treatment at the lowest cost.”