Chennai: SIMS Hospital, a multi-specialty hospital in Vadapalani Chennai, India is looking at opportunities to invest in Sri Lanka.
State Minister of Home Affairs, Provincial Councils and Local Government Ashoka Priyantha who was India last week met the top management of SIMS Hospital and made several investment proposals. “We will follow their proposals with the BOI,” he said.
President, SIMS Hospital, Chennai Dr. M. Balamurugan said that they are a new-age healthcare provider offering modern medical facilities to patients and also own and operate their medical colleges. “We are also engaged in to supplying of quality pharmaceuticals. We have two medical colleges in India and one in Nepal.”
A specialist Neurosurgeon by profession, he said that they are keen to open another medical college and if a good proposal comes from Sri Lanka they will consider it.
They are also open to setting up a fully fledged hospital in Sri Lanka especially in the Puttalam district as they see a vacuum for quality health care in this area.
As a first step towards opening a hospital in Sri Lanka, SIMS Hospital is looking to open a satellite medical consultation centre in Puttalam by tying up with a local medical clinic or a dispensary.
The mode of operandi of this would be for a Sri Lankan patient to send their medical history/reports to us on email 24 hours before and we will fix an online appointment with one of our specialized consultants who will study the reports and speak to the patient the following day.
“Through this online medical consultation the consultant will either prescribe medicine online or if advance treatment or surgery is needed arrange for the patients to come to Chennai,” Dr. Balamurugan said.
He said that the founder Chairman of the hospital, Dr. Ravi Pachamuthu has designed the hospital in such a way that from Chennai airport a patient could get to the hospital via the Metro Vadapalani Metro Station which is less than 100 metres from the hospital.
“If the patient comes with his family we can even offer them accommodation through our network of hotels,” Dr. Balamurugan said.
CEO, Inspiredge, Sumit Bothra, a Chennai based advisory company who made this meeting possible said that Tamil Nadu has pioneered health tourism in India and now other states are keen in offering speciality health care to Sri Lanka.
A 1200-crore conglomerate with presence in the fields of engineering, medical education, hospitality, industry, healthcare, infotainment and transport, the SRM group has established many Hospitals in India and runs medical centres operating in multiple disciplines. Over 40% of which are provided free of cost to the underprivileged.