Bengaluru, Nov 24 (IANS): Leading multi-specialty tertiary care hospital Narayana Health Monday announced the acquisition of two units of Westbank Hospital at Howrah near Kolkata in West Bengal for an undisclosed sum.

"The acquisition envisages taking over the management of Westbank Hospital's 150 beds in unit one and 240 beds in unit two, which are located at Howrah," the city-based Narayana group said in a statement here.

Post-acquisition, Narayana will offer cardiac care and cancer care facilities at Westbank, besides upgrading tertiary care specialties to provide affordable treatment to the affected people in the state's eastern region.

"We will retain all the 700 employees of Westbank and hire more to expand our service offerings in specialties such as neurology, orthopaedics, urology and gastrointestinal," Narayana chief executive Ashutosh Raghuvanshi said on the occasion.

Narayana manages a 300-bed private hospital (IQ City) at Durgapur, 170km from Kolkata, and plans to add 700 beds in phases.

"We are setting up a 250-bed multi-specialty hospital at Siliguri (560km from Kolkata) and a 300-bed multi-specialty hospital at Bhubaneshwar in Odisha, as West Bengal and eastern India are strategic to our growth plans," Raghuvanshi asserted.

The group's other hospitals in Bengal include Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences at Mukundapur, Rabindranath Tagore Surgical Centre at Highland Park and Rotary Narayana multi-specialty hospital at Salt Lake in Kolkata.

With the latest acquisition and Jubilant hospitals at Barasat near Kolkata and Berhampore, 215km away from Kolkata, early this year, the Narayana group has 29 hospitals in 17 cities across the country with combined bed strength of 7,500.