An increase in demand for healthcare facilities has prompted the city’s major private hospitals to go on an expansion drive. Coming up within two years are state-of-the-art structures with dedicated units at a cost of over Rs 300 crore.

While Ruby General Hospital is constructing a 12-storeyed structure with 325 beds, AMRI Hospitals and Apollo Gleneagles will add 65 and 40 beds, respectively. Apollo had already inaugurated 100 beds last week.

The bed counts at CMRI and BM Birla Heart Research Centre, too, are set to rise, as the nurse training schools in both hospitals are being shifted to a seven-storeyed structure coming up on Diamond Harbour Road.

“We will add a neurology centre, cancer treatment unit, kidney centre and a burns unit, as well as specialised units for trauma care, stroke and interventional neuro-radiology. Forty beds will be added to the intensive care unit,” said Kamal K. Dutta, the chairman and managing director of Ruby General Hospital. The facilities are coming up at a cost Rs 50 crore.

Ruby is also coming up with a Wi-Fi-enabled floor so that professionals can stay connected to their office from the hospital bed. “The Wi-Fi system was suggested by a Sector V techie and we decided to implement it immediately,” Dutta added.

The expansion is likely to be completed in two years.

Apollo Gleneagles is setting up medical and radiation oncology treatment facilities with “precision radiotherapy treatment” that will destroy the malignant cells while sparing the good ones.

“Precision treatment will be especially beneficial for those suffering from lung or colon cancer,” said Pratap C. Reddy, the chairman of Apollo Hospitals. Bone marrow transplant will be performed at the new site.

“The 40-bed facility is being built in our EM Bypass compound at a cost of Rs 70 crore,” Reddy added.

Apollo Gleneagles has also come up with 10 chest pain clinics across the city to cater to emergency patients.

“These clinics will be connected to the ICCU of the main hospital and critical care ambulances will be on standby to ferry patients there,” Reddy pointed out.

AMRI and Wockhardt, too, are expanding. While the former will open 65 beds adjoining its Dhakuria address, the latter is coming up with a 375-bed multi-speciality hospital off the EM Bypass.