AyurVaid Hospitals, a hospital chain which claims to follow classical Ayurveda medical services, today announced the formal opening of its hospital in Bangalore with in-patient facilities having 30 beds.
AyurVaid had recently received funding of Rs 4.5 crore from Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty.
Announcing the foray into Bangalore, Rajiv Vasudevan, CEO, AyurVaid Hospitals said, “This is for the first time a full-fledged Ayurveda hospital on this scale and format has been set up outside Kerala.”
Over the last few years there has been a massive increase in the number of over-the-counter Ayurvedic products. Ayurveda has lately been promoted more as being product-centric than being service-centric. Meanwhile “the core of Ayurveda, which is service, has been compromised,” lamented Vasudevan.
In Ayurveda, customisation is high and hence the product is part of the service. Ayurveda is a process-driven approach.
After establishing two hospitals in Kerala, AyurVaid Hospitals has now finalised a national roll-out. It hopes to have 40 Ayurveda hospitals integrated with modern medicine across the country, Vasudevan said.
AyurVaid today has a 15-bed hospital in Kochi and a 60-bed one in Aluva and the third one — a 30-bed facility — has opened in Bangalore, he said.
Five more hospitals have been planned in the first phase over the next six-eight months. About two-third of the proposed 40 hospitals would be 15-bed ones and the rest 50-bed ones.
The market for genuine chikitsa (treatment) is not growing is the biggest complaint of Vasudevan, who was part of the team that formulated Kerala’s biotech roadmap.
For chronic illnesses, Ayurveda is today the treatment of choice. The main thrust of the Bangalore hospital will be on treating lifestyle and workstyle disorders, in addition to chronic illnessess. This will be deployed to open about 40 hospitals with in-patient facilities.
These will be supplemented by outpatient consultation points in a hub and spoke model to enable country-wide coverage.
