Narayana Hrudayalaya plans low cost heart hospitals

Bangalore-based Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals (NHH) which is setting up Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion) Health City in Bangalore, announced that they plan to build low-cost heart hospitals across India with collective capacity of 30,000 beds in the next 5-7 years time.

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The Group with 14 hospital having collective capacity of 6000 beds in seven states, on Thursday commenced operations of its 300-bed health care facility in eastern part of the city under the first phase of the Health City project with an investment of Rs 110 crore (Rs 1.10 billion).

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The remaining project is expected to be completed in next four years.

"In India as many as 2.5 million people require heart surgeries every year, but less than 0.1 million get operated upon," chairman NHH, Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, one of the leading cardiac surgeons in the country said.

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"We are in the process of building low-cost heart hospitals across the country using prefabricated construction material. We intend to have such hospitals in place with collective capacity of 30,000 beds in the next 5-7 years. This is in a bid to reduce the cost and make surgery affordable," he said.

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Shetty explained that each such hospital would have 300 beds each which can be built with in six months with a cost of Rs 30 crore each.

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"We believe that the entire delivery concept of health care will undergo a dramatic change and India will become the first country in the world to dissociate health care from affluence," he added.

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The NHH has already commenced nine such low-cost heart hospital projects. One such project in Mysore with 300 bed capacity is likely to become operational in next 3-4 months.

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Talking about group's project in city NHH Managing Director, VC & Group CEO, Ashutosh Raghuvanshi said that the Health City, spread across 37 acre land in Rakhiyal area here, will have 5000-bed capacity in its various super speciality units, besides a medical college, nursing and paramedical educational institution. 

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The hospitals will have facilities for cardiac surgery, orthopedic cases, neuro-sciences, urology, nephrology, pediatrics and other advanced medical procedures.

Raghuvanshi said that there were also in talks for setting up similar health cities in other city of the country.

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The Group which has implemented micro health insurance for underprivileged people in Bangalore with a monthly premium of Rs 5, also hoped that Gujarat government would replicate their concept in the state for the benefit of the poor.