Escorts Hospital & Research Centre Ltd (EHRCL), an Escorts group company, is setting up medical centres which will act as satellites to its main hospital at Faridabad on the outskirts of Delhi. The company is looking at setting up these centres at Gurgaon, Mathura and Ambala. Each of these is expected to cost between Rs 2.5 crore and Rs 3 crore.
"The centres will have diagnostic and OPD facilities. For treatment and therapeutic care, cases will be referred to the Faridabad hospital," EHRCL executive director N K Pandey said.
The satellite centres will help EHRCL put in place a hub-and-spoke network for medical care. The business model is being followed by other companies such as Max Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals group and Fortis Healthcare. "Our model is slightly different from others in that doctors in our hospitals are full-time employees. This would ensures 100 per cent commitment from them," Pandey said.
Work on these centres is expected to begin once the ongoing Rs 40 crore expansion of the Faridabad unit is completed by April next. To be funded out of internal accruals as well as debt, the expansion plan envisages upgrading the tertiary care specialties with special emphasis on neurology and neuro-surgery, cardiology, urology & nephrology, minimal invasive surgery, gastroentereology and trauma and joint replacement. "We want to make each of these a centre for excellence," Pandey added. On completion of the expansion, the bed strength of the hospital will go up to 250, with a 57-bed critical care being set up.
EHRCL, Pandey said, has developed special skills to deal with polytrauma. "Located on the national highway and Faridabad being a hub for industrial activity, almost 13 per cent of the cases coming to us are accident victims," he said.
To deal with these cases, the company has constituted a special team to prioritise their treatment.
EHRCL reported a total income of Rs 19.64 crore and a net profit of Rs 21 lakh during 2000-01. The Escorts group has another healthcare company -- Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre Ltd -- which operates a super-speciality cardiac care hospital in Delhi. The group is planning a third hospital in Amritsar under a third company. "In the future, the group might think of bringing all the hospitals under one umbrella," Pandey said.
