Ramaiah Memorial Hospital of Bengaluru wants to foray into Calcutta by setting up a hospital to bridge the gap in demand and supply of affordable, accessible, quality healthcare in the east.

It promises to treat patients at a cost that is 20 to 25 per cent lower compared to other private facilities.

Ramaiah, which runs a 500-bed multi-super-speciality quaternary care hospital and an 850-bed Ramaiah Medical College and Hospital in Bengaluru, would extend its collaboration with Mount Sinai Health System of New York to Calcutta.

“We are seriously looking at setting up a hospital in Calcutta, Assam and other parts of the northeastern region. There is a lot of need gap there for quality quaternary healthcare,” said M.R. Jayaram, chairman, Gokula Education Foundation, which owns and runs Ramaiah Memorial Hospital and Ramaiah Medical College and Hospital.

“We may have a local partner in Calcutta to set up the hospital. But it will not be an acquisition of an existing facility but a greenfield project,” Jayaram told Metro in Bengaluru on Saturday.

The foundation is looking at marking its presence in Calcutta in three to five years.

“Many patients from Bengal come to Bengaluru for treatment. They feel Bengaluru is a good place for treatment. The confidence level is there in them about the quality of our healthcare,” Jayaram said after the formal launch of a long-term collaboration agreement with Mount Sinai International of New York.

The agreement, initially for 10 years, launched on July 12, aims at advancing healthcare services through collaborations in clinical excellence, research, quality of patient care, safety, innovation and technology.

Along with patients from Bengal, the hospital in Calcutta, when set up, will also cater to Bangaldeshi nationals who visit Bengaluru and Chennai in large numbers, he said.

On an average, 1.5 lakh patients from Bengal and around 75,000 from Bangladesh go to Bengaluru for treatment every year, according to healthcare industry sources in Karnataka.

“We are looking at setting up a 350 to 500-bed superspecialty quaternary care hospital in Calcutta with the aim of treating patients at an affordable cost,” said Jayaram.

“The partnership with Mount Sinai will be brought to Bengal as well,” he said.

Recently, Bengaluru- based Manipal Hospitals has acquired hospitals of the Emami-owned AMRI and also Medica Synergies in Calcutta.

Devi Shetty’s Narayana Health, also based in Bengaluru, is building a new 1,000-bed quaternary care hospital in New Town.

Jayaram said: “We are not going to compete with other hospitals. Our focus is efficiency that is not determined by an increase in value of shares in the stock markets but by providing quality healthcare that is affordable, advanced and accessible. We can be sustainable after doing that because of the large volume of patients we cater to.

“We will provide treatment at a cost 20 to 25 per cent lower compared to other private hospitals.”

He added: “We will not go for private equity for the expansion programme.”

The funds would be provided by Gokula Education Foundation.

According to Jayaram, the two most important pillars for the development of a state were healthcare and education.

“Karnataka is strong in both. Bengal needs to bridge the gap in providing healthcare and education. More private players are needed for this,” he said.

As part of the collaboration with Mount Sinai, one of the leading healthcare and medical education and research institutes in the US, doctors, nurses and other clinical and administration staff from Ramaiah would be trained in New York.

“These trained doctors and nurses can be also sent to Calcutta’s hospital for providing quality treatment,” said Jayaram.

The collaboration, officially called Ramaiah Memorial Hospital in affiliation with Mount Sinai Hospital-New York, looks at assessing gaps and capabilities in Ramaiah, setting up centres of excellence and maintaining quality of care and patient safety.

“We would like to share our experiences and expertise with Ramaiah. The collaboration is for the five states in south India along with Bengal and northeast,” Szabi Dorotovics, president of Mount Sinai International, told The Telegraph.

Dorotovics said they were also contemplating joint research projects.

“We have expertise in preventative and community healthcare. We are working in the field of research in oncology. We are also doing research to identify the markers for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases,” he said.

David L. Reich, president, Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens, said they would benefit from the collaboration because of the huge patient base of Ramaiah.

“From DNA, genetic diversity, socio-economic backgrounds to patterns of diseases, India has a huge base of patients, which will be important for the research,” said Reich.