Healthcare majors such as Apollo, Sterling, Shalby to scale up operations.
With rapid urbanisation of the state, corporate hospital chains in Gujarat have drawn up plans to expand their network to cater to the growing demand for speciality healthcare.
While healthcare major Apollo Hospitals is currently focussing on enhancing its Gandhinagar facility, city-based Shalby Hospitals is planning to set foot in neighbouring states as well besides opening a new unit in Ahmedabad.
Rajiv Sharma, chief executive officer, Sterling Hospitals pointed out that as there has been a rapid rate of urbanisation in Gujarat in the recent years, the demand for quality and speciality healthcare has risen.
"In comparison to 37.4 per cent of the state's population living in urban areas according to 2001 state census, the 2011 census data released by the state government shows that around 42.6 per cent of the population now lives in cities," Sharma said.
Sterling now operates seven hospitals in the state including one at Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Mehsana, Adipur, Mundra each. Chennai-based healthcare major Apollo Hospitals is working on expanding its Gandhinagar facility by adding 150 beds as it feels there is huge unmet demand in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar as well as the adjoining areas.
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Apollo had initially planned to expand footprint to smaller cities in the state like Rajkot, Surat, Mehsana, Bhavnagar among others. It has, however, now decided to focus on its Gandhinagar facility and put the district penetration plan on hold for now.
"We are now focussing on the Gandinagar expansion, and will not expand to other cities within this fiscal," Praful Pawar, chief executive officer, Apollo Hospitals Ahmedabad confirmed.
Gandhinagar-based hospitals like Apollo, Goenka Hospitals cater to the demand from the adjoining areas. "People from the nearby locations prefer to come to us rather than travelling all the way to Ahmedabad, "said Apoorva Goenka, chairman of Goenka Hospitals.
Ahmedabad-based Shalby Hospitals has, on the other hand, is all set to start a new 350-bed facility here soon.
"We will be investing in phases on this new facility, around Rs 100 crore in the first phase and close to Rs 50-80 crore in the second phase. We already have around 8,000 sq yard of land in possession," said Vikram Shah, chairman and managing director of Shalby Hospitals. The hospital now has a capacity of 230 beds in the city.
Shah, meanwhile, is also working on setting up 100-bed hospital at Jaipur, a 100-bed brownfield hospital in Indore, a 250-bed hospital in Goa in public-private partnership, apart from a 200-bed facility in Surat within the next two and half years.
"The average investment per bed is around Rs 50 lakh. The Indore unit would be operational within the next six to eight months, while the Jaipur unit will take around two and half year's time to come up," he said.
Shalby plans to fund this Rs 325 crore expansion plan through a mix of debt and equity.
"At present, we are a debt-free company," Shah informed. Two models have expansion have emerged in the recent years, while some hospitals have gone in for brownfield facilities, while others have chosen to come up with new facilities.
"The brownfield option where the infrastructure is developed by a partner while the hospital is managed by the healthcare provider, gives one advantage. It is asset-light and also offers a faster entry into a market. We are trying to adopt a hub-and-spoke model for our expansion. While patients can go to the district hospitals for general health issues, in case of speciality care, they can be brought to our city hospital in Ahmedabad," Sharma explained.
While he did not wish to comment on Sterling's future expansion plans, he, however, confirmed that the hospital chain is very much working on its ongoing projects.