India’s largest provider of medical treatment announced Tuesday that it aimed to open an office in Cambodia to train local doctors and would encourage more Cambodians to travel to its facilities in India for complicated medical procedures.
Apollo Hospitals Group representative Anupam Sibal said during a press conference in Phnom Penh on Tuesday that the company was looking to set up an office in the capital, and eventually develop telemedicine facilities in Cambodia.
“It is the future,” Dr. Sibal said of telemedicine, which involves the remote treatment of patients via telecommunication technology.
“We are currently in the process of setting up an office” in Phnom Penh, he added, without giving a timeframe for when the office might open.
Dr. Sibal said the office would also allow Apollo to train local doctors either in India or via the company’s online training platform, which the company has used in Africa and former Soviet states.
He told reporters that about 10 percent of the more than 4 million patients treated annually at Apollo hospitals were medical tourists from outside India—between 200 and 300 them from Cambodia.
“Most of the patients who have come here from Cambodia come for liver or kidney transplants,” he said.
