Franchisee of Apollo to expand

The Cradle, a neo-natal franchisee unit of the Apollo Hospitals, is expanding its presence in Bangalore. The group presently has one facility, at Jayanagar in southern Bangalore. The Cradle is a venture of the Kids Clinic (Bangalore) Pvt Ltd and Scrips N Scrolls India, a company engaged in property development and investments.

The company's first unit recently completed one year of its operations and the hospital has 600 deliveries to its credit. Kids Clinic is promoted by Dr Kishore Kumar, a doctor who has nearly two decades of experience.

Kids Clinic is in the process of setting up two more identical hospitals in the city for an estimated investment of around Rs 40 crore. The hospitals are set to come up in the north and central parts of Bangalore.

Neo-natal care has been taken out of the hospital by The Cradle and has attempted to take away a hospital ambience. At The Cradle, in southern Bangalore, said Dr Kumar, "We have kept our rates competitive. It costs Rs 40,000 for a normal birth and Rs 50,000 for a Caesarean section respectively at The Cradle."

The hospital which aimed at seeing 250 births in the first year and 350 in the second year and around 600 in the third year of its operations, hit the 600 figure mark in the first year itself.

The pressure on the hospital is pushing the infrastructure near the point where the hygiene could be compromised. The hospital, which aims at providing an ambience unlike that of a hospital so that the would-be mother is in an environment where there are no sick and people in pain around.

The hospital has so far seen no infant mortalities, which Dr Kumar said is rare. "We have a limited facility," he added. India had an infant mortality rate of 56 per 1,000 live births in 2007-08, according to the Human Development Report of UNDP. Compare it with seven in the US. But then, it is down from 68 per 1,000 live births that India saw in 1998-99.

The hospital may use the pricing mechanism to keep numbers at optimum level.

Too low a price and the rush will be too much for the hospital to handle with the given infrastructure. Hence, pricing mechanism may be used to check the numbers, said Dr Kumar.