A new 400-bed facility of the Wockhardt Hospitals, coming up at Bannerghatta road on the outskirts of the city, will be opened by April, Mr Vishal Bali, Chief Executive Officer, Wockhardt Heart Institute, the flagship heart hospital of the Wockhardt Hospitals Group, said on Monday.

Speaking to newspersons here, he said once the new hospital building was opened, the Wockhardt hospital here would become the largest facility of the Group in the country.

He said that while its existing hospital on the Cunningham road would continue to provide its services to humanity, the new facility would offer services pertaining to cardiovascular and cardiac related diseases, besides neurology and neurological surgery.

Mr Vishal said the Wockhadrdt Hospitals Group was not only undergoing capacity expansion, but also playing a leadership role in establishing India as the destination for advanced learning in cardiac surgery.

He informed that under the leadership of Dr Vivek Jawali, Chief Cardiac Surgeon, a structured training programme, was being offered to cardiac surgeons from neighbouring China and already three batch of doctors had been trained in Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery.

He said Dr Jawali and his team at Wockhardt had already played host to more than 30 cardiac surgery teams from across the country and the Asia Pacific region.

Dr Bali said besides imparting training in cardiac surgery, Wockhardt hospitals had also established modular training programmes in association with Harvard Medical International in Interventional Cardiology and Critical Care. A team from Uzbekistan had recently undergone a training session in 3D ultrosonography, he added.

While India had already established itself as ''global doctor,'' Wockhardt Hospitals' efforts to establish these advanced training programmes prove that clinicians and institutions from India would play a leading role in the advancement of specialised care across the globe, he said.

To a question, Dr Bali said under its expansion programme, the Wockhardt Group had also planned to build hospitals in Mumbai and Kolkata. Last year, the Wockhardt hospital here had treated over 800 patients from abroad, especially the United Kingdom and the US, he added.