While it is expanding its current 200 beds hospital to 400 beds in Ahmedabad, Apollo Group of Hospitals is now planning to set up an acute heart hospital as well in the city.
To be set up for a rough investment of Rs 15 crore, the new facility will be ready by July 2012.
"While we had a full fledged hospital functioning in the city, we believe Ahmedabad needed an acute heart facility where intervention procedures could be carried on 24x7. The new facility will come up by July for which we have hired project consultant company to draw a plan for us," said Prathap Reddy, chairman of Apollo Group of Hospitals.
The healthcare group has also expanded its oncology unit at Ahmedabad. "We had been running a comprehensive cancer program for last five years at Apollo Hospitals Ahmedabad. We started with 13 beds in the unit and now with the average occupancy reaching 25, we have expanded the facility," Reddy added.
Nationally, by March 31 2014, the group is looking to add 2,500 beds at an investment of Rs 1,500 crore. By end of 2012 alone Apollo intends to take up the total number of beds to 10,000 across its 56 hospitals.
Apart from expanding its 200 bed capacity at Apollo Hospitals Ahmedabad to 400, the group will also add four more clinics in Gujarat to its current six in the near future. While it has a 50:50 partnership with Cadila Pharmaceuticals for its operations in Gujarat, Apollo is taking the alliance international into countries like Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda.
Meanwhile, according to Reddy, India needs to add about 100,000 beds per annum for next nine years. "Of these 45 per cent need to be in the primary health care segment," he added.