Three hospitals worth US$ 30 million for Hemas during next five years
View(s):By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera
Hospitals (Pvt) Ltd plans to build or acquire two to three more hospitals, which will cost them around US$30 million, according to officials.
“These will be 60-bed capacity hospitals. Building them as well as acquiring and renovating (as they did with the hospital in Galle) is on the cards,” Murtaza Esufally, Chairman Hemas told the Business Times on the sidelines of announcing the opening of the company’s newest multi-specialty hospital in Thalawathugoda. Built with an investment of Rs 1.4 billion ($11 million), Hemas Hospital’s newest facility is located 8km off Colombo close to Thalawathugoda Junction. It is scheduled to open in early May.
The 62,000 square feet multi specialty patient care building is a 60 bed hospital which will be fully equipped with ‘state of the art’ facilities including modern operating theaters, delivery rooms with neo-natal care, an Intensive Care Unit, a 24 hour emergency care unit, a high tech 24 hour laboratory with the latest sophisticated MRI and CT scanners in the country, Dr Chamila Ariyananda, GM Hemas Hospitals said.
Currently the hospitals are located in the suburbs of Wattala (in north Colombo) and Galle (in Sri Lanka’s south). Wattala is a 100-bed multi specialty general hospital built to international standards. This has over 15,000 outpatient visits per month, 900 in-patients per month and it’s in its 3rd year of operation,” Mr. Esufally said, adding that it was built with an investment of $15 million.
Galle is a 50-bed multi-specialty hospital built to international standards and over 15,000 out-patient visits per month along with 200 in-patients per month is recorded and it’s in its 3rd year of operation. Hemas Hospitals is a pioneer in taking private medical care to areas outside the capital city of Colombo. Both hospitals are built in vibrant suburbs and regional towns with large populations, Mr. Esufally said, adding that the hospitals also operate several stand-alone diagnostic centres.
He said patients admissions in the public sector is at 4-5 milliona year, where as private sector has 250,000 per year which is about 5 per cent of the public sector admissions. “ Third party payments such as insurance will increase with the expected economic growth and then we expect private sector admissions to rise,” Mr. Esufally said.
He said that Hemas also has purchased an acre of land for Rs. 250 million between Ratmalana and Moratuwa for another hospital. He said Kandy and Kurunegala are also areas that Hemas is considering to put up hospitals. While the management is still in the process of reviewing the next project, he said Hemas Hospitals as a group hopes to have about 600 hospital beds by 2020.
Hemas Hospitals is a subsidiary of Hemas Holdings, with a focus on five key sectors- FMCG, Healthcare, Transportation, Leisure and Power Generation.
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