India Offers Vast Space For Medical Facilities To Grow

The BW Healthcare Summit witnessed a lively session on the prevailing state of India's healthcare sector and the kind of treatment facilities needed across the country.

Big industry names participating in the summit's third edition in New Delhi on June 3 were unanimous in their view that the country held huge untapped opportunities for healthcare services.

They said there is a need to develop both multispecialty and speciality facilities.

Rajit Mehta, CEO and MD of Max Healthcare, said: "Patients don't choose between multispecialty and speciality, all they want is best treatment for them."

Though reaching break-even in multispecialty takes a longer time, about six years compared to two years for facilities speciality treatment, multispecialty will never go out of fashion, he added.

With the contours of healthcare changing in the country in the last few years, out-of-the-hospital, single-specialty healthcare centres are increasingly becoming popular and throwing up significant opportunities for emerging healthcare businesses.

Single-specialty hospitals, or day-care centres as they are typically known, focus on services in any one area of healthcare. This could be eye care, dental care, fertility and oncology, or any other medical field.

Almost all businesses in the single-specialty segment are lining up significant expansion plans.

Dr Mahipal S Sachdeva, chairman and medical director of Centre for Sight, said: "As a medical entrepreneur you will need to propel investor as he looks at how scalable is your business."

He said there is no limit to growth for a single specialty treatment facility.

"The largest eye-care chain in China is valued at $5 billion. This is the size you can look at," Sachdeva said.

Amarinder Singh, founder and CEO of Clove Dental India, said there is a huge untapped market.

"It's just we have to find the right market. Ninety per cent of the people in India suffers from oral hygiene but only 10 per cent go to a dentist. We need to create awareness."