North Eastern patients to get special Apollo care

Chennai: In a first of its kind initiative the Apollo Hospitals on Monday signed an MoU with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to boost both domestic and international medical tourism. As a part of this MoU, a pre-paid preventive health package offer will be available for passengers from north eastern states, who can board chartered coaches in particular trains, to Chennai in the first phase of the launch.

Chennai has become the destination of choice for medical treatment. Equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure, skilled faculty and specialised treatment options, Chennai has been attracting patients from across the country and internationally for years now. An average of 200 patients from the north east visit Apollo in Chennai every day for various treatments and procedures. With this MoU in place, passengers will now have an access to preventive health check packages from Apollo Hospitals that can be purchased along with travel tickets to Chennai. Catering to the increasing inflow of patients from Kolkata, IRCTC will arrange a charter coach in appropriate trains between Kolkata and Chennai, exclusively for passengers who have opted for Apollo - IRCTC Health check package with a rail ticket combo.

Speaking on the occasion Dr Prathap C. Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Hospitals, said, "Chennai is one of the top destinations for quality healthcare services and we are glad that IRCTC has chosen to partner with us in helping patients reach their destination of choice with ease and certainty. We hope the well-integrated services of IRCTC along with our clinical expertise will provide patients from regions to Chennai with unprecedented access to quality healthcare."

Mr V Sriram, South Zone Director of IRCTC stated that he's delighted about the arrangement and such initiatives will serve the people of our country and neighbouring countries in their efforts to access preventive healthcare. "The tentative target of implementation is around Mid-November to end of November. We are planning arrangement of the coaches in particular trains once in two weeks time and then will take it forward accordingly. As of now our focus is on the north-east area since it is a pilot project and will help us get an idea," Sriram said.

In addition to this, IRCTC has lined up value added tourism services, that is, hotel stay arrangements, local transfers and sightseeing including visit to Tirupati / Pondicherry based on patient / attenders' choice during their stay at Chennai after the health checkups.

The agreement, which has further scope of reaching out to neighboring countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, can propel India's medical tourism market to greater levels and increase focus on preventive healthcare. "We are looking at Bangladesh since it is in the same geographical continuity and they have been traditionally coming from there," he added.