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Dr Prathap C Reddy Apollo Hospitals

eople who work for the health and wellbeing of their compatriots often do so because somewhere inside them is a heart that bleeds for their fellows. Dr Prathap C Reddy started Apollo Hospitals to introduce world class facilities to Indians. In 1983, he started the first Apollo Hospital in Chennai, and while that is considered the premier medical centre in the city today the healthcare provider has since built hospitals all over the country and abroad. Apollo has hospitals in Srilanka, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nigeria, Qatar, and Kuwait. With its focus on providing quality healthcare, the Apollo group has become a very popular provider in the region. The story of Dr Redyys decision to start Apollo had a touch of pathos to it. After working in the United States for ten years, he returned to start a good heart hospital in India. At the time he referred people needing complicated

heart surgery to hospitals in the US. Once, a 37 year old man came to the hospital complaining of chest pain after a heart attack. Dr Redddy tried to refer him to the Texs Heart Institute for a coronary byepass surgery, but the mans employer refused to pay the $30,000 required for the treatment. As a result, before other arrangements could be made, the man died right before Dr Reddy. The incident affected him deeply and motivated him to start Apollo in Chennai, at the time the only corporate hospital in india. Despite Apollos size, Dr Reddy still manages to get in close to the action and frequently travels abroad to foreign healthcare conference to keep abreast of the latest technology and methods in the field. Aoolls hospital in Hyderabad was the first in the world, outside the United states, to receive general certification from the American Joint Commission International. In addition, its exceptional treatment of Acute Stroke won the hospital the Disease or

Condition Specific care (DCSC) certification from the same agency. Dr Reddys home town is Aragonda, in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, and eight years ago he returned there with an ambitious plan, to set up a pilot telemedicine project to provide medical consulting to the hamlets populance. With an investment of Rs 2 crore, the telemedicine centre was located in a one-storeyed hospital with 50 beds. Previously, patients with complicated problems had to make long journeys by train or bus to get to a major city like Chennai or Hyderabad to receive their treatment. But now all that changed, and while the hospital had 18,000 patients in the first year, that number climbed nearly half to more than 25,000 patients the next year with patients choosing to come from over 300km away rather than travel to metropolises. Apollo capitalised on this success by starting 70 more telemedicine centres in the country at places too remote to have a full-fledged comprehensive healthcare centre. The main behind this medical behemoth was educated at Madras Christian College and Stanley Medical College in Chennai, and went on to head various research programmes at Missouri State Chest Hospital. While Dr Reddy has considered interest in the science of medicine and has often expressed a desire to study different

diseases, he has been known to say, about Apollo, ..we want to see that you bring in the management of sickness but our greater thrust is on wellness. From this arises Apollos motto, Touching lives for that is Dr Reddys primary focus-preventive medicine which focuses on awareness and foreknowledge. Most interesting of all is the fact that Apollo has managed to reverse brain drain to a certain degree in various countries, and its hospitals in Sri Lanka and Nigeria have often attracted medical professionals from those countries who left to practise in the West. When his first hospital was nearing completion, there were calls nearly everyday by professionals abroad who wanted to return home and practise there. In india too Apollo has continued to attract top class Indian medical talent from abroad attracted by the professionalism of the hospital and its good working conditions. Employees in the hospital are competent and undergo comprehensive training in service to patients. The company has various community programmes to involve the families of employees with the hospital, a process that also helps Apollo learn more about the employees family background. Such steps have helped Apollo to improve its public image, with its 1066

ambulance service a prominent sight on the roads. Apollos high success rate in surgical procedures is achieved at a fraction of the cost of similar surgery at hospitals abroad. Contrary to popular opinion, Apollo hospitals treat substantial numbers of middle class patients. In addition, the hospitals also treat a certain number of poor patients who are unable tp pay the fees for complicated surgeries. Still, Dr Reddy emphasises the importance of health insurance and hopes to have every citizen of the country covered by some form of medical insurance. Apollo is still growing today, looking to built more hospitals overseas.

The goodwill won by their focus on providing quality healthcare for people has helped them become one of the most popular providers in the country.

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