Wockhardt Hospitals Limited, which is going public for its expansion plans, intends to establish additional healthcare facilities across India through a series of Greenfield and Brownfield projects. The expansions will take place in Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkatta, Hyderabad and New Delhi. This will take the total number of hospitals from 15 to 31 by 2010.

The Group is currently expanding its bed capacity at Wockhardt at Mulund in Mumbai and building new hospitals in southern and northern Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkatta. It is pursuing Brownfield projects in selected Tier II cities such as Madgaon (Goa), Bhopal, Nashik, Bhavnagar, Ludhiana, Jabalpur, Bhuj, Patna Hubli and Varanasi. \"In many of the Tier II cities, we expect to be among the first major private healthcare service providers to commence tertiary care operations\", stated Anil V Kamath, managing director, Wockhardt Hospitals Limited.

The hospital major will develop a network of regional specialty Intensive Care Unit (ICU) hospitals which will act as referral centres to the super specialty centres for advanced and tertiary care procedures. It has two regional ICU hospitals in Vashi at Mumbai and Chord Road in Bangalore. These are 40-50 ICU bed centres manned with 30 doctors and trained intensive care specialists. \"In the long term, our ICU network strategy will contribute to the reduction of the average length of stay at the super specialty hospitals,\" stated the Wockhardt Hospitals chief.