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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.
Flashback…
 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bureaucracy, outdated land ceiling acts...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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8:36:49 AM 
