New Medical college@Wayanad-Rs100 crores

Dubai-based Dr Azad Moopen’s Group (ASTER Medical Center), which runs a number of hospitals and allied facilities in GCC countries and in India, has announced the setting up of a medical college in Kerala.

The Rs1bn medical college, being set up under the group’s Indian arm, Malabar Institute of Medical Sciences (MIMS), is coming up at Meppadi in Wayanad district.
According to the group’s chairman, Dr Azad Moopen, the MIMS Wayanad Medical College will be established in a 50-acre medical township, Naseera Nagar.
Other healthcare institutions like a college of nursing and a dental college will be added in a phased manner.
“It will initially have an annual intake of 100 students which will go up to 150 gradually with the addition of post-graduate courses. The teaching faculty will be drawn from both the MIMS and external resources,” said Dr Moopen, an alumnus of the Calicut Medical College and a former member of its faculty.
Though some of the best corporate hospitals in the state like the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) and the Lakeshore Hospital in Kochi, besides the MIMS hospitals at Kozhikode and Malappuram, are promoted by non-resident Indians from the region, this would be the first medical college to be promoted by an NRI group.
The MIMS became the first hospital in Kerala to receive accreditation from federal regulator National Accreditation Board for Healthcare providers (NABH) in 2006 along with the KIMS.
“A 300-bed multi-specialty hospital will be built initially which shall be expanded to a 500-bed super specialty hospital as the college matures. Students and staff will get the best accommodation along with recreational facilities,” he said.
Wayanad is one of the most backward districts in the state and lacks basic healthcare amenities, forcing residents to depend on the Medical College Hospital in Kozhikode, some two to three hour’s drive.
“No cardiologist or nephrologists are available in the district. We hope the pristine beauty of Wayanad and a resort-like ambience that we plan to create will attract quality students and faculty,” added Dr Moopen, who is also setting up a “Medical City” in the Kochi targeting medical tourists.
Residents of Wayanad have for long been calling for better medical facilities in the district at affordable costs.
Recently, the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical Sciences announced an advanced centre for healthcare and research at a 200-acre campus.
“We were saddened by the plight of the people living on the hilly terrain and felt this was one area that requires urgent attention. At the initiative of M I Shanavas, the lawmaker representing Wayanad in Parliament, we discussed the issue with Health Minister P K Sreemathy and local legislator Shreyams Kumar and decided to go ahead with the project,” Dr Moopen said.
Highly subsidised and free treatment would be made available for the poor at the multi-specialty hospital attached to the medical college, he said adding he was expecting early approval from local bodies and the state and federal regulators as well as affiliation from the university.
The group has also offered help to improve facilities at the local government hospital on a ‘private-public-partnership mode’ providing access for students to the hospital so that the process of establishing the college can be expedited.