By IANS,
Chandigarh : P. Venugopal, former director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Saturday announced here that he will head the medical division of the Rs.50 billion Alchemist group of hospitals and help set up speciality hospitals across the country.
“I am happy to be associated with the Alchemist hospitals group, which shares the same vision about healthcare as I do,” Venugopal, who has performed over 60,000 heart surgeries, told reporters here.
“We will set up world-class hospitals. We will also have facilities like tele-medicine, tele-education and research, especially in areas like stem cell technology,” he added.
The cardiologist had a controversial tenure as head of AIIMS. He was sacked by Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss as AIIMS director on administrative charges, but fought a legal battle and won back the post in May 2008. He retired on July 2.
Alchemist group chairman K.D. Singh said: “We will be setting up 100-150 bed hospitals all over the country. We already have our medical facilities in Panchkula (near Chandigarh), Delhi, Pune and other places.”
He said the group wants to make things like angiography, angioplasty and heart bypass available to needy people at affordable rates of Rs.5,000, Rs.50,000 and Rs.70,000 respectively.
Singh added that extremely poor people would be treated free of cost.
“I am quite happy that these lower rates are being offered to needy people. These rates are being practised in AIIMS,” Venugopal said.