Apollo upgrades facilities for Trehan's team

Apollo Hospitals is planning to augment its facilities to cater to the additional patient inflow following the joining of cardiologist Naresh Trehan and his team. The hospital has ordered a new cath-lab and is readying its entire idle capacities to make room for Trehan's surgeons.

In addition to the two operation theatres that are currently used by Apollo's cardiac team, two more will be made available in a few days, sources close to the development said.

Trehan's team will conduct its first surgery in Apollo on June 6. Apollo is expecting about 40 doctors, both seniors as well as juniors, to join its team next week.

The hospital, however, is not planning to have Trehan's team on its rolls. According to informed sources, Trehan's senior team will join Apollo as consultants. The move is on to see that Trehan's team and the existing cardiac team of Apollo work in an integrated fashion. Apollo management did not respond to an email query from Business Standard.

Meanwhile, Escorts Hospitals, which Trehan and his team left to join Apollo, put the total number of doctors who left the organisation at 20.

"Of the 250 doctors we have, 20 doctors, including some senior doctors, have resigned from their job. Twenty para-medical staff have also resigned, thus making the total number of people who left at 40. "Escorts has over 2,000 employees, and the resignations of 40 people are not going to affect our operations," an Escorts spokesperson said.

While Trehan and his close associate Yatin Mehta, director, anaesthesia and critical care, were the first to announce their plans to leave Escorts, other doctors resigned in the last two days.

Sources close to Apollo said the exact size of the team that was to join Apollo would be clear on Monday.

Apollo has a fully equipped cardiac care division that specialises in cardiothoracic surgery, interventional cardiology, non-invasive cardiology and electro physiology.

The department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery of the hospital, established 11 years ago, has since then conducted over 2,500 operations including complicated coronary artery bypass operations, surgery for all types of valvular heart disease and infant & neonatal heart surgery.

The success rate of the surgeries performed stands at 99 per cent, the hospital claimed.