With the aim to provide paramedical, medical and nurses training courses at its upcoming Apollo Aragonda Health Knowledge City in Andhra Pradesh, the Apollo Hospitals Group, on its 25th anniversary, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indira Gandhi National Open University. The project, which will require an investment of Rs 1,000 crore over the next five years will be located on 100 acres. 

On Thursday, the media was informed by the founder chairman of the Apollo Hospitals Group, Dr Prathap C Reddy, “45 courses would be provided by IGNOU. Some of these courses would include dialysis courses for doctors, medical assistantship and technician’s courses. The courses would be developed and monitored by IGNOU through a combination of online, onsite and distance learning modules.”

IGNOU plans to train at least 10,000 people every year. The students would be able to avail the course at Apollo Hospitals at Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. Adding more to the facilities in Knowledge City, Reddy informed that a 150-bed hospital will also be housed in it. 

He said, “We will be applying for an SEZ status for the City within a year. We will be taking possession of the land soon. It will be operational within 24 months.” 

The Apollo Knowledge Foundation will undertake the training and educational programs in the City. 

Other than this, a 5% stake may also be given by the group to its Super Health Hiway project, in order to provide a network of doctors and patients to the outsider across the country. 

“The electronic medical records repository, for maintaining the patient’s and hospital's records electronically, would start within three months and would be used in the Hiway project. The data network will link 2, 00,000 doctors to each other to improve healthcare services,” reported Sangita Reddy, Executive Director, Apollo Hospitals Group.