Dubai, June 8: India's Apollo group of hospitals is all set to open its 100-bed super-specialty hospital in Oman by the end of this year.

A report in the Times of Oman newspaper quoted Apollo Medical Centre (AMC) managing director V.T. Saileswaran as saying that the hospital would become the first of its kind in the private sector in Oman.

The centre is expected to fill the gap between super-specialty hospitals and polyclinics in the Gulf nation.

Said AMC CEO Sandeep Kumar: "The AMC came up because of this gap. We don't have any hospital here taking care of the multi-specialty hospital segment. We came and filled the gap."

According to the report, AMC, being set up at a cost of 500,000 Omani rials, is currently recruiting new staff from Hyderabad in India.

Kumar said nurses, paramedics, technicians and super-specialty consultants would be recruited from Apollo hospitals in India. The total number of new recruits, including doctors, is expected to be 75 in the initial phase.

There are over 300,000 Indians residing in Oman.

Currently, the AMC is looking at cases that need observation and are being taken care of in the emergency room. But the centre hopes to start its in-patient service before the end of this month.

"By the third or fourth week of June, we will be starting in-patient services," Saileswaran told the newspaper.

He also said that patients in Oman, who require further treatment, would also be redirected through AMC to any Apollo branch in India. Apollo hospital super-specialty consultants would also be visiting AMC on a regular basis.

The Apollo chain of hospitals was started in 1983. Today it is the largest private healthcare chain in Asia with branches in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nigeria, Qatar and Kuwait.