Medical services supplier Medicover may build its first private hospital in Romania in cooperation with the India-based private clinic operator Apollo Hospitals, following the signing of a partnership agreement by the two groups.
"The Bucharest hospital will go ahead depending on the success of a similar project the two companies recently started in Poland," said Gabriel Ionescu, general manager of Medicover Romania.
Medicover signed an agreement with the Indian company, Apollo Consulting Services, a member of the Apollo Hospitals group, for the building of a 200-bed private hospital in Warsaw, Poland.
"When it is opened the Romanian hospital will not even be able to meet fully the needs of Medicover''s clients, as demand is huge," Ionescu added. According to the company''s general manager, Medicover has a business plan and a feasibility pre-study, but the project will not start before the market rules are clear and the legislation on private health insurance is fine-tuned.
"Private health insurance in Romania is now allowed to complement and supplement the services offered by the state. For private insurance to be able to substitute state insurance, we need to have a public-private partnership between the operators and the state, because private insurance also includes relations with public medical facilities," Ionescu said.
According to the Medicover official, investment in hospitals takes a lot of time to amortise and operating costs are very high.
Medicover Romania logged revenues of almost three million euros in the first half of the year, 56% up on the corresponding period last year.
Medicover operates six medical centres, of which three are located in Bucharest and the rest are in Focsani, Cluj and Constanta. The company also subcontracts medical services to another 43 partner clinics in 37 towns. Medicover invested 1.5 million euros in expansion last year.
Apollo Hospitals includes eleven companies and is one of Asia''s largest operators of private hospitals. alexandru.cerchez@zf.ro
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