Apollo Hospitals slows new bed addition

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise is expected to add 765 beds in the next five years across three hospitals, with an investment of ~6.2 billion.

In the past, it added a little over 1,000 beds annually. Last year, it had announced that it would bring down the pace of building up infrastructure, looking more at consolidation and profitability. The bed count addition has bee nat a 12 percent compound rate from financial year 1994-95. It presently has around 10,000 across 70 hospitals, reported as on March 31,2018. Over recent years, it added 13 hospitals with 2,400 beds, investing ~19.3 billion .“Towards this expansion, we have an additional capital expenditure commitment of ~6.21 billion. Additionally, we plan to add oncology facilities at existing hospitals in Viz ag and B hub an es war. We hope to become a national leader in this field, both in terms of clinical differentiation and volumes ,” said the company in the annual report.

As part of the expansion plan, the firm is with a Proton Therapy Centre as part of a Comprehensive Oncology Referral Campus at south Chennai, to be operational towards the end of this financial year. This is planned in two phases, with the first gan try by December 2018. The second and third gan try will take another six months. This treatment facility is claimed to be available in the Asia-Pacific region in only China and Japan. The strategy for growth includes strengthening the presence in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bengal u ru, Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai, and setting up hospitals in tier-II and tier-III cities. The firm is looking at ways to improve the average revenue per occupied bed per day. It has 13 hospitals in tier-I and tier-II cities, with 2,443 beds.