Private hospitals in Kolkata emerge from Covid blues – Telegraph India

Private hospitals in Kolkata have resumed investing in new or stalled projects after a year and a half, during which all spending was channeled to ramp up Covid facilities and big investments were kept on hold because of uncertainties.

Officials of several private hospitals said that following the second wave, they had come to terms with the Covid pandemic and gained confidence in dealing with another surge.

In some cases the focus of investment, the officials said, has shifted to fields of treatment that are in high demand even during lockdowns.

While some hospitals are building new campuses, others are planning to expand the existing facilities.

Since the middle of last year, most private hospitals were focussed on buying critical care equipment like ventilators, monitors and ECMO machines to support people with severely damaged lungs.

Belle Vue Clinic in south Kolkata has recently resumed construction of two hospitals in New Town, one of which will have 200 beds and the other 400.

Five floors of the eight-storey 200-bed hospital were complete when construction stalled because of the pandemic.

Work on the 400-bed multispeciality hospital was stalled after piling work. Fresh tenders have been floated.

“The first wave of Covid had taken private hospitals by surprise and none of us knew what to do. We were busy tackling the biggest health emergency and bought ventilators and other ITU infrastructure. We also enrolled more nurses and doctors,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO, Belle Vue Clinic. Some hospitals were also investing in setting up oxygen plants to meet the high demand of medical oxygen. That forced the hospital to put other projects on hold.

Peerless Hospital will resume its oncology project soon on its campus.

“Construction of the building with 600 beds will start soon. The target earlier was to start it in 2020 but things got pushed back,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive, Peerless Hospital.

During the pandemic, the hospital purchased 12 ventilators and other ITU equipment.

“We have also observed that some of the specialities like oncology and nephrology had patients like before despite the pandemic. So the focus of investments will be shifting to these specialities,” said Mitra.

The Narayana Health group invested around Rs 25 crore during the pandemic but the money was spent on buying 50-odd ventilators and other critical care equipment for its three units, including the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences in Mukundapur.

Now the Bangalore-headquartered group is setting up two floors with 150 beds at its Howrah hospital, which will be mostly reserved for cancer patients.

There are also expansion plans for the Mukundapur hospital. “In the past one-and-a-half-years, we realised that one has to live with Covid, but at the same time treat non-Covid patients, too. We are now looking forward to major expansions,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health.