Anandalok Hospital is now taking its low-cost medical facilities further south. The group, which currently has hospitals in Salt Lake and Bhowanipore, is setting up its third hospital at Tollygunge, adjacent to the Metro Railway terminus, with an investment of Rs 8-10 crore.

D.K. Saraf, Anandalok secretary, told Metro the hospital will come up on a one-and-a-half bigha plot. As per plans, it will have a 24-bed ICCU, besides an advanced eyecare unit, including a 24-hour eye emergency unit.

The proposed hospital will also have outdoor facilities at Rs 10, “the lowest in the private healthcare sector”.

Anandalok has already lined up investments to the tune of Rs 36 crore to set up three hospitals, two in Calcutta and one at Ranigunge, in Burdwan district.

“Currently, we have 140 ICCU beds in our hospitals. The Tollygunge hospital will not only add to our total ICCU bed facilities but will also have a state-of-the-art surgical unit,” said Saraf.

The Anandalok authorities have also sought a suitable plot in and around Calcutta to set up “a large general hospital to benefit the downtrodden, who cannot afford treatment in most nursing homes”.

Claiming that the hospital provides “the cheapest treatment option”, Saraf referred to an operation on a “complicated tumour located behind the heart” of a patient on May 2, at the Salt Lake hospital, “for just Rs 8,500”.

Surgeon B. Ramanna, who performed the operation, corroborated how Anandalok was providing low-cost treatment without compromising the quality of treatment or healthcare. “It is first-world medication with a third-world perspective,” said the surgeon.

Anandalok is also planning to set up a big hospital in Purulia where it is now in the process of identifying a plot.