THE MAKING OF AN INSTITUTION

On a busy day (to commemorate the 100th Bone Marrow Transplant at Apollo Cancer Hospital), thronged by both electronic and print media, Pratap C. Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Group, went back in time to the ideas and aspirations that shaped the Apollo Group.

I was born in Chittoor district, which formed part of the erstwhile Madras Presidency. After completing my preliminary medical education in India, I went to the U.S. for higher education. I started practising as a Cardiac Surgeon in the U.S. On one occasion, I sent a greeting card to my parents. It was a picture card of my family. My parents wrote back saying, " In India, family is still a worthy asset and many long for a happy family. If something could be done towards this end, you will be doing something beneficial to the country". It was at that time that I decided to come back to India and provide quality (world class) health care in each district and the state.

I came back to India, to my hometown Chennai, and started my practice. I realised that serving my country gave me ( my wife and all of us) greater joy and happiness. As a practising cardiologist, I was the first to introduce the treadmill equipment.

In the 1970's in India, there was absolutely no surgical centre (for cardiology) worth mentioning in the country. On November 9th, 1979 a young male patient died, as he did not have enough money to finance his surgery requirements. I was totally moved by this. I wanted to do something for my countrymen, so that incidents like that never recur.

Initially I had to face tremendous hardships - an insensitive bureaucracy, outdated land ceiling acts... but I worked towards my goal. In 1983, the then President, Zail Singh, inaugurated the first hospital.

Today, we are very happy with our performance. Teamwork is the secret of our success. We, at Apollo, feel that we are part of a family - the Apollo Family. We introduced two new things in the health care sector in the country- corporate structure in the hospital and world class health care at affordable costs in India.

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