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Home healthcare services are fast catching up in the metros and other major cities.
The growth in number of patients accessing these services and the operational expansion of home healthcare providers testify this trend.
“Though demand has always been there for home medical care, there has been a surge in this segment with increase in availability in the recent past,’’ Mahesh Joshi, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Home Healthcare Services, told Business Line .
Since its formal launch a year ago, Apollo could provide services to 15,000 patients. “We are on an expansion mode and will be opening our centres in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam in next three to six months,’’ he said.
The demand is mainly driven by the upper and middle-class salaried section especially the double-income group, said Lalit Pai, Co-founder and CEO, Nightingales Home health services.
There is lot of demand of speciality care for patients suffering from stroke, pulmonology disorders and post-discharge ICU care at home,’’ he said.
Nightingales, which raised about $13 million so far, has 10 branches in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
“We will soon be opening a third branch in Mumbai,’’ Pai said adding that services will also be expanded to Chennai and Delhi before the end of this financial year. It has served over 18,000 patients.
The increase in disposable income, the need to take care of elderly parents, time-taking physical diagnostic test procedures, absence of people to take care of the elderly patients suffering from serious ailments such as cancers are also driving this trend.
“Till last year, I had to take leave to take my 68-year-old father for diagnostic tests. But now, I am availing these services at home by CallHealth,’’ said M Mohit, a software professional who works for Infosys. Then comes the cost factor. According to Joshi, home healthcare offers up to 40 per cent savings in critical post-operative care by avoiding hospitalisation costs besides giving psychological comfort to patient and their family members.
Going forward, more corporate hospitals are likely to join the race for this market pie. “We have almost finalised the plan and will be announcing the launch of services soon,’’ said top executive of a corporate hospital with branches in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
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