Geriatric service provider, KITES Senior Care, will be expanding its operations in Tamil Nadu soon, according to its MD & CEO Rajagopal.
“Our immediate focus is on three cities - Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. We will be setting up a second facility in Hyderabad soon and will start operations in Chennai in July,’‘ G Rajagopal told businessline in an interaction.
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The Bengaluru-based company has recently opened a state of the art 90-bed facility in Hyderabad with about 30,000 sq ft of built-up space.
KITES Senior Care, a brand of Lifebridge Senior Care P Ltd, provides “Out of Hospital” care services covering post-hospitalisation rehabilitation, palliative and dementia care in its specialised facilities and at the residences. Since 2016, KITES has cared for over 4,500 seniors in Bengaluru.
Covid impact
The Covid-19 pandemic has not only boosted the awareness and business of geriatric care but also redefined the approaches. “In post-Covid phase, many elders required rehabilitative care and also changed the perceptions of the geriatric care. While earlier, those children living abroad or at far away places were looking for geriatric services, now children are willing to provide special care to parents though they live with them,’‘ Rajagopal said adding that the geriatric care market was “just getting formed’‘.
Elders constitute about about 11 per cent of India’s population and poised to reach 18 per cent levels soon (about 24 crore) per the Economic Survey. “We are heading to be an aged population necessitating appropriate care delivery system to meet the needs. While the ‘out of hospital’ geriatric care models are very popular in developed countries, India is just in its early days of adopting them,’‘ he said.
KITES Senior Care recently announced the closure of Pre Series A funding of $2 million from Ranjan Pai’s Manipal Education & Medical Group (MEMG) family office.
“With about one million dollars invested earlier, the total funding so far will be $3 million. KITES will use the funds to scale up operations in Bengaluru, expand in Hyderabad and to Chennai, and developing a technology platform providing health monitoring & active ageing of seniors,’‘ Rajagoapl said.