The Hyderabad-based Global Hospitals will enter Mumbai with a 19-floor 450-bed hospital. The hospital, which is under construction, will see an investment of over Rs 200 crore, The group, which now has a presence in Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore, is seeking to be in six metros across the country with 4,000-5,000 beds by 2013.
The hospital group, promoted by Dr K Ravindranath, who is now the chairman and managing director, is offering tertiary care super-speciality services, focusing on organ transplantation. As of now the group is in the process of setting up a organ transplant unit in Bangalore.
Dr Ravindranath holds a 65 per cent stake in the group. He says he has been pumping in equity time and again as the group has been expanding as he doesn’t want to dilute his stake. The rest of the stake is held by other doctors who work with the group, and a US and Mauritius-based venture capital fund.
The group hopes to see its revenues rising to between Rs 300 crore and Rs 350 crore this fiscal from the Rs 200 crore it had seen last year. The group hopes to see a quantum jump in its revenues as many of its beds are yet to be operationalised. The group, as of now, has about 2,000 beds though it is yet to operationalise all of them. It takes four to five years to fill beds, said a market analyst.
Meanwhile, the hospital’s Bangalore operations, BGS Global Hospital, had seen revenues of between Rs 50 and 55 crore. In Bangalore it has three facilities that act as satellite centres.
The group hopes to see a big chunk of its revenues coming from transplants. As of now, about 15 per cent of its revenues at its Hyderabad operations come from organ transplants. The group is building up its transplantation infrastructure.
The hospital chain has had some difficulties in keeping the costs of its operations down over the last year because of currency movements. The hospital saw a cost-escalation for its patients by 15-20 per cent with dollar costs going up, and so has been the case with the capital costs for the hospital chain. With real estate costs too going up, it has affected the project costs for the group.
The hospital hopes to bring down the costs of its transplants for its patients to about Rs 14-15 lakh once the number of transplants touches 100. As of now it costs Rs 18-20 lakh for a transplant. The lack of organ transplants and a lack of organ shortage has kept costs high, said Dr Ravindranath.
On the future plans, the hospital group will set up a 750-bed hospital in two phases in Kolkata, with 350-beds in the first phase and 400 beds in the second phase. In New Delhi it will enter as a joint venture by 2012. And, all six metros will have large transplant programmes.
The group, has been tapping neighbouring countries for patients. It has had patients from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, West Asia, Iraq and Europe, Malaysia and Indonesia.
