Apollo Hospitals Group will open two super speciality cancer hospitals in Hyderabad and Kolkata within the next five days, as part of their plans to set up four such hospitals at a cost of about Rs. 360 crore.
Equipment
The hospitals would be equipped with Novalis Tx, one of the world's best cancer treatment equipment.
Chairman of the group Prathap C. Reddy said at a press conference here on Thursday that the first of the four hospitals was opened at Chennai six months back with Cyberknife technology. The Hyderabad hospital would be inaugurated by Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan on March 20 and West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan would launch the Kolkata hospital on March 23. The fourth hospital, being planned at Delhi, is awaiting approval from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
The super speciality cancer hospitals are being developed as part of the group's plans for expansion with Rs. 1,800 crore during 2009-10 and 2010-11.
Three hospitals were opened recently at Bhubaneshwar, Pune (Lavasa) and Mauritius and the one at Secunderabad would be opened on April 2 next.
Work is also underway for two hospitals in Nigeria and one each at Shanghai (China) and Vienna (Austria).
The Group plans to open 11 hospitals in 2010-11 and another 20 in 2011-12, the Chairman announced. The bed strength of the Group hospitals would also go up from 8,800 at present to 10,800 by March 2011-end.
Dr. Reddy further announced a 30 per cent discount on cancer screening and other related tests, if required, at its nine cancer hospitals in the country for the next 10 years.
On the Novalis Tx technology, Dr. Reddy said that it would treat all sizes of lesions in a couple of minutes. “Powerful arc from the machine locks in with tumour, hits only cancerous cell and spares normal tissue with the best of accuracy”, he explained.
Ayurveda centre
The Group is also setting up a Research Centre on Ayurvedic Medicine at Hyderabad with Rs. 20 crore in association with Kerala Ayurvedic Institute.
It would spend 25 per cent of its allocation for research on traditional medicines like Ayurveda, Chinese and other systems of medicine, Dr. Reddy added.
