The Hindu Business Line : Columbia Asia plans more hospitals

Healthy look
The existing 90-bed facility on two acres of land in north Bangalore has just completed a year
IT IS SAID to be the country's first hospital set up through the FDI route.

Bangalore , Aug. 30

Columbia Asia, the year-old chain of mid-sized hospitals for the middle-class, says it will start facilities in Delhi and Mysore in 2007 or 2008.

The plan is to have at least 10 community hospitals in the next four years, including expansions in the hub, Bangalore, and forays into A and B cities, according to Mr Tufan Ghosh, CEO, and Dr Nandakumar Jairam, Chairman and Group Medical Director, Columbia Asia Medical Centre. "We haven't set a limit to the number," they told Business Line, adding the total investment was yet to be finalised.

Hospital chain

The existing 90-bed facility on two acres of land in north Bangalore, said to be the country's first hospital set up through the FDI route, has just completed a year and will break even this year, Mr Ghosh said.

Two more of its chain hospitals will come up in Bangalore by 2007 or 2008 at an investment of around Rs 65 crore. Columbia would introduce invasive cardiology procedures at the upcoming 170-bed tertiary centre at Yeshwantpur. The 90-bed centre at Marathahalli in the east would be on the lines of the existing one. Mr Ghosh said the Hebbal centre would break even this year.

Work on the centre at Delhi's Dwaraka area was slated to begin in a month's time and this, as in Mysore, would be coming up on company-owned land.

New facilities

The Columbia Asia chain has a ten-year-old presence in Malaysia and Vietnam and is promoted by a team of Seattle-based NRI investors. The group is consolidating its Asian presence by expanding in Malaysia and setting up new facilities in Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Mr Ghosh, who had earlier worked in the hospitality sector, said Columbia Asia focuses on the urban middle-income group and encourages day surgeries and minimum length of hospitalisation to cut treatment costs by 30 per cent.

Big boom

The growth of the domestic healthcare industry in the last five years has been phenomenal and would spur the next big boom in health insurance, he said. According to Dr Jairam, India today is where South-East Asia was a decade ago. "The next 10 years in healthcare should be very exciting," he said.

More Stories on : Medical Institutions & Hospitals | Health | Karnataka

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page