Azim Premji Foundation to set up a 1,000-bed charity and super specialty multi-organ transplant hospital in Bengaluru

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the Azim Premji Foundation has targeted to spend ₹4,000 crore over the next five years to build and operate a new 1,000-bed charity super specialty and multi-organ transplant hospital in Bengaluru.

The hospital will occupy a 10-acre site at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases campus in Bengaluru, which the government will lease to the Foundation for 99 years, he announced on January 17 after the Department of Medical Education and the Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the construction and management of the facility.

Mr Siddaramaiah said the state was grateful to the Foundation and Azim Premji “for undertaking this noble initiative”, and for deciding to operate the facility free of charge. “The Foundation will invest ₹1,000 crore in constructing the hospital, and about ₹400 crore annually to run the facility, amounting to over ₹4,000 crore in five years,” he said.

Over the past 25 years, the Foundation has supported teacher training, contributed ₹1.5 crore to the government’s egg distribution program in schools by 2024, and awarded annual scholarships of ₹30,000 each to students of government schools under the Deepika programme, the Chief Minister added.

Key for public systems

Anurag Behar, CEO of Azim Premji Foundation, emphasized the importance of strengthening public systems and said private initiatives cannot compensate for weak public infrastructure.

“The Foundation believes that public systems are central to a good society. Our commitment is to work with government to strengthen them,” he said, noting that healthcare starts with ASHA workers, primary health centers and preventive work in communities. “Hospitals are critical, but the first goal should be to prevent people from getting sick,” he said.

Mr Behar praised Karnataka as “one of the three most proactive states” the Foundation works with. He noted that the Foundation’s 25-year involvement in Karnataka has seen the most visible progress in grassroots work in Surpur and Sindagi, among others.

Transplant hub

Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash R. Patil said the proposed hospital will offer multi-organ transplant services, with 70% of the procedures being free and the remaining 30% at minimal rates, on the lines of the autonomous Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research and the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology.

He said more than 5,000 patients in Karnataka are currently waiting for a kidney transplant, and more than 1,000 need a liver transplant.

Dr. Patil added that the project is in line with the government’s larger roadmap to strengthen tertiary healthcare. “We have set a target to set up one medical college, one super specialty hospital, one trauma center and one cancer hospital in each district,” he said.

At present, Karnataka has 22 government medical colleges, ten super specialty hospitals, eight trauma centers and eight cancer centres, and the plan is ‘half-way’. He said the state plans to move to a universal health care coverage model like Britain’s in the next decade.