Malaysia-based hospital chain Columbia Asia Hospitals plans to set up 15 new multi-speciality hospitals in India in three years. It plans to invest around $100 million for the expansion which will take up bed strength from 570-odd beds now to over 2,000. Columbia Asia intends to set up these facilities under the ‘community hospital’ model. Community hospitals are essentially 90-to-100 bed facilities which have expertise in nearly all disciplines, excepting some hi-end treatment. The company has identified few locations like Ghaziabad, Meerut, Lucknow, Pune, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum and Hyderabad for the new hospitals.

“Since we prefer to go alone and invest through the 100% FDI route, the slowdown has not impacted our India expansion plans. Our parent company in Kuala Lumpur is financially strong. In fact, funds for the 15 new hospitals are already in place. We are just finalising the real estate deals,” Columbia Asia Hospitals CEO (India) T Ghosh told ET. Incidentally, Columbia Asia currently operates five hospitals in India — two in Bangalore and one each in Delhi, Kolkata and Mysore. Excepting the Kolkata facility, which is a JV with a local partner, all other facilities are owned by the company. This apart, the group operates 13 hospitals in Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

“We are also planning to set up smaller 30-bed hospitals in tier IV cities and the first one is coming up in Karnataka. Once we’ve developed the community hospital network, the next step will be to set up 200-bed referral hospitals which will have expertise to treat rare and difficult cases. We plan to expand on the hub-and-spoke model,” said Mr Ghosh. Columbia Asia’s partnership with DLF to develop hospitals in their township projects is also yet to take-off. “We are DLF’s partner of choice and have the first right of refusal wherever they plan to set up a hospital in their township. But due to the realty slowdown, such plans are yet to be implemented,” Mr Ghosh said.

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