Wockhardt Hospitals Group is poised for a major expansion with 16 hospitals in the pipeline to be commissioned between 2008 and 2009. This would bring the total number of hospitals to 28 and strengthen its pan-India presence. The new initiatives comprise both Brownfield and Greenfield projects. It will also take the total team strength from 4,000 to 10,000 personnel.

Among the Greenfield projects are a 250 bed centre each at Kolkotta and Mumbai apart from a 170-200 bed centre at New Delhi. The Brownfield and Greenfield programmes will help the hospital major to augment its bed capacity to 1,798 from 1090 at the current eight super-specialty hospitals and four regional specialty intensive care unit (ICU) hospitals at Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkatta and Nagpur, Surat and Rajkot.

The hospital group which has opted the investor route over the franchisee model for its entire expansion in terms of beds will provide it the much-needed fillip to increase its accountability in quality management practices and patient care. Also for expansions in healthcare space, it has preferred a partnership model over a merger or an acquisition strategy.

Going by its pace of expansions in terms of infrastructure and surgical achievements in adult and paediatric segments, the Group chalked out a fiscal proposal and decided to go public to raise the required capital to support its new projects. In fact, it is the third hospital enterprise in the country after Apollo and Fortis group to go public.

From a single specialty expertise of cardiology-cardiac surgery to a cluster of super specialty centres, Wockhardt has the entire gamut of multi-disciplinary capability including orthopaedics, neuro surgery, gastro intestinal. Women's Health where its team has performed minimal invasive surgery, laparoscopy for colorectal cancers and brain tumour endoscopy procedures. "This method of sub-segmenting our capability in joint replacement, paediatric orthopaedics and complex neurological emergencies proves our ability to take each specialization to the highest end in both technology and technique proving our efficiency in clinical talent," stated Vishal Bali CEO Wockhardt Hospitals Group.