Fortis to add 1,300 new beds in existing facilities in the next 2-3 years

Company to also launch a digital solution for all healthcare needs and plans to rope in partners

Fortis Healthcare, one of the leading hospital chains in the country, is planning to add 1,300 new beds across the country in the next 2-3 years. The hospital chain has said that occupancy levels across its centers have reached around 70 per cent.

Fortis is also working on a new digital platform which will be a one-stop solution for all healthcare needs. The hospital chain is planning to rope in partners for the digital platform.

Speaking to Business Standard on the sidelines of the inauguration of a 250-bed multispeciality Fortis Hospital at Vadapalani, Chennai today Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, MD & CEO, Fortis Healthcare said that currently the hospital chain operates around 4,700 beds across the country and it plans to add 1,300 new beds in the next 2-3 years.

While refusing to share capex behind the new beds, he said they will come at the existing facilities, so capex will be low. The capex will be funded through internal accruals, said Raghuvanshi.

Last year the company capex was Rs 300 crore, a portion of which included the Rs 250 crore on the new hospital which was inaugurated today. For 2020-21, the company said that it will be conservative on the spending with about Rs 150 crore.

He said that the lockdown had impacted routine work at the hospital at the start of the first quarter. Occupancy levels currently are at around 70 per cent, improving constantly. For Covid beds occupancy is at around 80 per cent, while for the non-Covid beds occupancy levels are at around 50 per cent.

Fortis used the pandemic to restructure and make the organisation leaner, worked on various cost initiatives, upgraded the infrastructure, brought some of the outsourced works like radiology in-house to improve profitability. "All these initiatives will help our profitability at the industry level in the two years," said Raghuvanshi.

He added, Fortis is working on a digital platform, which will be a one-stop solution for healthcare. The platform is expected to be launched by March-April next year.

During the first phase, all the internal health care offerings of Fortis will be on the platform, in the phase-II it is planning to rope in partners, including diagnostics centers, pharmacies or medicine delivery chains, laboratories,

Fortis Healthcare is one of the largest integrated healthcare service providers in the country that is now part of a leading international healthcare provider –IHH Healthcare Berhad.