Manipal group plans hospital in Mysore
"We are planning a multi-speciality hospital in this tier II city with ICU and critical care facilities. We are identifying the land, possibly within the ring road. It may take another two years. It is still in the planning stages," MHS Medical Services Group Director Nagendra Swamy said in Mysore.
"Mysore is a good centre for basing a unit of our medical services. It is no more a pensioners' city. Major industries are setting up shop here. It has a network of good roads and good population. Basing in Mysore, we can reach out to neighbouring Kodagu, Mandya and Hassan as feeder districts," he told Business Standard.
Mysore has growing opportunities for medical tourism as well where a person coming for medical treatment can combine visit to a number of tourist places of his choice. Once the airport starts operating, Mysore's potential will grow further. Business opportunities will expand. "So, we want to be here," he said.
MHS is on an expansion mode and is looking at options in Tier 2 cities like Mangalore, Udupi, Vijayawada, Salem, Visakapatnam and Goa. Over the last three years, it has expanded dynamically with a 200-bed hospital in Malaysia. It is building a 300-bed hospital in Delhi and in Mumbai.
Serving for the last 53 years, MHS has built a network of 14 hospitals of 6,000-bed strength. It catered to 1.4 million outpatients and 0.5 million in-patients last year. Its network covers medical colleges, health education, health care and research.
In India, arthritis and joint pain cases are increasing. The availability of treatment is very limited also. Resulting from bad food habits, lack of exercise, alcohol consumption and smoking, it is impacting the economy and will touch $237 billion national income loss in 2015. "So, we need to prevent these kinds of diseases in a war-footing," he said.
Ortho Spine Specialist Subodh M Shetty lamented the picture in Mysore as being no different from Bangalore as here too a large number of elderly women and senior citizens visited the two-day joint pain and backache camp conducted by Bangalore's Manipal Speciality Hospital this week-end.
"Here, we saw a large number of cases where women and elderly were missing support and care. Their children are away, either abroad or out of Mysore.," he bemoaned.