Fortis Healthcare to add 300-500 beds per year in near future

Fortis Healthcare would be looking at adding around 300-500 beds a year as "bolt-on" activities to add more beds and clinical programmes to the existing healthcare facilities. The company will be focusing on improving its performance and implementing technologies including robotics for patient care, said Fortis Healthcare CEO Bhavdeep Singh.

Speaking to the reporters after announcing completion of 54 heart transplants by Fortis Malar Hospital, a part of Fortis Healthcare, he said that the growth for the company is to come from adding on beds to the existing hospitals, launching more medical programmes, focusing on India and the internal growth within the four walls of existing Fortis Healthcare.

"Our growth is going to come from two or three different ways. One is that what we call "bolt-on", which is add on to existing facility. We can building add beds and increase the clinical programmes in our existing facilities, he said.

Every year the plans are to add between 300-500 beds on an annual basis, for the foreseeable future including in the existing facilities in Mulund in Mumbai, Jaipur in Rajasthan and Fortis Medical Research Institute in Gurgaon among others.

"We have worked hard on getting our balance sheet right, we worked hard on reducing our debt, and we are going to the type of expansion which would be funded by the business itself. We are not looking at adding debt," he said. The company will be adding new medical programmes such as oncology and cardiology programmes in multiple hospitals across the country.

The company has also made a decision to invest into robotics surgery, which it has not done so far, as part of bringing in more technology.

Elaborating the future plans he said, "At some point we will look at growth opportunities, but I think there is enough to do within the four walls of Fortis." The company is looking at running a better, leaner organisation.

The company would also explore opportunities like using drones for patent care and faster tranportation of materials including a bag of blood or similar consignments. While it has conducted a few trial runs of this with some dummy materials and there has to be a proper system and regulations in place before taking it forward, said K R Balakrishnan , director - Cardiac Sciences, Fortis Malar Hospital. The hospital has completed 54 successful heart transplants, starting from 2010, and has launched a comprehensive heart failure management centre.