More than 60 doctors from the city - from super specialists to general physicians - have joined hands to set up a major hospital in the city at a total cost of Rs 220 crore, including the land cost. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will inaugurate the hospital christened Pradhama on Wednesday.

P. Visweswara Rao, the Managing Director, a doctor himself, said here on Tuesday that after the bifurcation of the state, doctors in the city felt that medical facilities should be vastly improved. "We felt - all the doctors involved in the project - that we should contribute to the city and the state and conceived of the project. It is a co-operative hospital set up by the doctors, not a corporate hospital, but it will have all the latest equipment and facilities and the medicare will be on a par with the best hospitals," he explained.

He said the fees would be reasonable, roughly 50-60 per cent of what the corporate hospitals charge, and it would be accessible and affordable even to the lower middle class. The below-poverty-line patients could be treated under the Arogyasri government insurance scheme.

He said the promoters and shareholders had contributed Rs 51.09 crore as margin money and Rs 122 crores was borrowed from the financial institutions and the rest was land cost, amounting to Rs 220 crore.

He said the hospital would have 600 beds, all the latest equipment, including MRI scan, and also air ambulance facilities with a roof-top helipad. He said clearance had been obtained from the Civil Aviation Ministry for the air ambulance but the fire department's clearance was awaited.

He said, “Our dream to have a hospital of our own to provide healthcare to all sections of society has become a reality. The investment has been made by 62 experienced city-based doctors on a ‘cooperative basis.’ The people will also have an opportunity to invest in it, as it being made operational as a cooperative hospital.”

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW