“Deepak Venugopal, Director, N.M. Virani Wockhardt Hospital, Rajkot, tells us about the challenges in setting up the super-speciality facility and what lies ahead for the region.”
Q. What are the challenges you faced whilst setting up this facility jointly with the Ashok Gondhia Memorial Trust?
The primary challenges were two. The first was to renovate a 20 year old building to Wockhardt standards and the second, to migrate from a Secondary Level care setting to Tertiary Level care setting.
Another challenge we faced was that the project was rolled out whilst the old hospital continued to operate. This was possible because of skilled management and efficiency of the entire team. So effectively, we never refused patients.
Q Please tell us the nature of the relationship between Wockhardt and the charitable trust?
Wockhardt Hospitals and the Ashok Gondhia Memorial Trust have a long term management agreement, where Wockhardt has invested in technology and manpower.
The Trust will continue supporting the charity out of the revenue shared with them by Wockhardt. This will help bring in world class tertiary level care to the reach of people who cannot afford it.
Q Do you think India’s 2 and 3 tier cities are ready with the supporting infrastructure for projects such as this one?
Definitely yes, there are only four
