Ramaiah's to renovate teaching hospital

The M S Ramaiah Group of Institutions is in the process of giving its teaching hospital, of its medical college, a makeover.

The Bangalore-based M S Ramaiah Memorial Hospital (MSRMH), which helps cross-subsidise its teaching hospital, over the last three years has seen about Rs 100 crore being spent on the upgrade and modernisation of its hospital. Now, the group is planning to expand and renovate its teaching hospital too.

The renovation and expansion could cost between Rs 30 crore and Rs 40 crore. For the project the group plans to raise funds through loans. The renovation, aimed at modernising the teaching hospital includes adding new equipment as required and modernise the infrastructure of the hospital.

The hospital now handles 150 under-graduate students and 75 post-graduate students, and a few doctoral fellows.

The MSRMH has set up two centres of specialisation, in association with Narayana Hrudayalaya called M S Ramaiah Narayana Hrudayalaya Heart Centre which was set up during February, 2007.

The heart centre was set up as a joint venture (JV) with Narayana Hrudayalaya. It is readying the Gokula-Curie Centre of Oncology which is set to go operational this month. The cancer centre is being set up as a JV with the Curie Centre for Oncology. Curie Centre is one of the group of cancer hospitals owned by the Health Care Global (HCG) run by Dr B S Ajai Kumar.

HCG was expected to invest Rs 8 crore in the oncology centre. The centre would offer treatments including bone marrow transplant, paediatric oncology and leukaemia therapy. The JV was signed in October.

"As of now, we don't plan to have any more such speciality centres," said Dr Naresh Shetty, medical director, MSRMH. The model involves MSRMH providing the physical infrastructure, including the machinery and gadgets required and the JV partner running the facility with its own people.

The group is now also considering to set up hospitals at district headquarters, though the plans are in their preliminary stages. They would help supplement the services provided by the primary health centres, added Dr Shetty.

It is looking to follow the hub and spoke model for operating the hospitals with the hubs being at district headquarters which would have many specialities and smaller hospitals being the spokes in the smaller towns.