Pratap C. Reddy

HYDERABAD: Establishing 100 chest pain clinics early next month, increasing the bed-strength to 10,000 a year, adopting hi-tech solutions, increasing overseas presence and undertaking cutting edge research to combat growing heart ailments, diabetes and cancer were some of the plans unveiled by Apollo Group Hospitals chairman Prathap C. Reddy here on Tuesday.

Talking to The Hindu on the occasion of the launch of Apollo Health City, he described it as a milestone in healthcare, and claimed it was the first such facility in the world.

``It is not a medical city, it is a health city,'' he said. It was an integrated health delivery set-up, covering all aspects from disease prevention, management to wellness and research.

The Health City, established on 33 acres here, has a 300-bed multi-speciality unit. It will be home to 10 centres of excellence, including institutes for heart diseases, cancer, orthopaedics, emergency, renal disease, neurosciences, eye, minimally invasive surgery, trauma and cosmetic surgery.

About Rs.1,000 crore was invested over the years in the Health City, while another Rs.150 crore was being infused to upgrade three institutes — heart; orthopaedics and joint diseases and neurosciences.

Connectivity

Explaining how Apollo was leveraging latest technology for providing better healthcare, Dr. Reddy said telemedicine connectivity was established with 100 centres. Soon 52 African countries would benefit from the services provided by five to six hospitals from India, including Apollo.

While Apollo Hospitals had presence in six countries, including Bangladesh, Nigeria and United Arab Emirates, plans were on to set up medical institutions in Fiji, Mauritius, and the U.K.

The Apollo Health Street, which was mainly into medical BPO, was valued at $ 200 million. This would be doubled, as another similar entity valued at $ 180 million, would be acquired.

Referring to research on heart disease in collaboration with John Hopkins International, Dr. Reddy said the younger generation of Asians was seven to ten times more prone than Caucasians. India would have 60 per cent of people suffering from heart ailments by 2015. Through research the gene responsible for the ailments would be identified to eliminate the cause. The proposed chest pain clinics would have heart command stations and attached to Apollo Hospitals.

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