Single-specialty hospitals mushrooming in smaller towns

On the sun-baked Devalgaonraja-Mantha Road in Jalna, 335km east of Mumbai, women in navvari saris and men in dhotis and Gandhi topis can be seen flocking to a two-storey building. And it’s not a community function that they are out to attend.

The building in fact houses a 140-bed specialty hospital —- Shri Ganapati Netralaya —- which caters to complex problems related to the eye, including sleepy eyes, squint, cataract, glaucoma, corneal transplant, lasik and paediatric eye surgeries.

Since all complex procedures related to the eye are performed in this hospital, patients from Jalna and nearby areas are able to save on travel to Pune or Mumbai, says Madhukar Tambe, a 57-year-old from Aurangabad, who has come for glaucoma treatment.

And it’s not Jalna alone. Hospitals such as this are coming up in several tier III & IV towns, including Angol, Karimnagar, Saranpur and Muzzafarpur.

What sets them apart from the facilities of established chains such as Fortis and Apollo, which are also making inroads in non-metros, is that these hospitals are single-specialty units, providing all procedures pertaining to one disease segment at reasonable rates.

“Patients everywhere look for quality services. However, complicated procedures are often not available in small towns. Thus single-specialty hospitals will grow in such towns,” said Dr B S Ajaikumar, chairman of HCG Hospital in Bangalore, which has cancer hospitals in Shimoga, Hubli, Erode providing radiation, medical oncology and surgery.

Dr Girish Rao, medical director, Shri Ganapati Netralaya said that as other eyecare facilities in the region are mainly restricted to cataract, people flock to Netralaya from places like Buldhana, Akola, Vidharbha, etc.

According to Dr C S Pruthi, chairman of BBC Heart Care, a 75-bed cardiology hospital in Jalandhar, earlier it was mostly the rich who went to New Delhi for treatment. But for poor with lesser means, going to the capital was no less than a luxury trip and entailed heavy expenditure.

“Travelling to New Delhi for an angiography meant shelling out `45,000, including stay and travel. Due to specialty hospitals, the time and money spent is curbed to a large extent,” he said.

Moreover, with limited rentals and manpower costs, courtesy the Tier III location, charges to patients are much less (see table).

“We focus on volumes and this makes the service more affordable,” said Rajat Goel, CEO, Eye Q Hospitals, which has hospitals in Rohtak, Rudrapur, Haldwani, Muzzafarpur, etc.

According to Ankur Bharti, consultant, Technopak, small town hospitals have to keep in mind the paying capacity of the local population and set prices accordingly. “Since they are not multi-specialty units, the infrastructure costs are less.”

Hardly surprising then that demand for such hospitals is growing by leaps and bounds.

BBC Heart Care performs about 250-300 angiographies, 60-70 angioplasties and 25-30 bypass surgeries per month, said Dr Pruthi.

Dr Rao said Netralaya sees about 400 patients in the OPD and performs 40-50 surgeries daily.

However, due to logistical reasons, it is not possible to include everything in small towns, rues Dr Ajaikumar. “A PET scan, for example, has to be supplied with radioactive material, which has a short life and is difficult to manage in a small town. So, in such cases, patients are referred to Bangalore.”

Not only is the demand on rise, Bharti said such hospitals earn 30-35% margins.

No wonder hospital owners are looking to tap more towns in
semi-urban locations.

Ajaikumar said HCG will set up cancer hospitals in towns like Trichy, Salem, Guntur, Karimnagar and Angol.

Eye Q, on its part, will cover towns in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab, said Goel.