A Woman Of Substance

Anne Marie Moncure, the Managing Director of the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital is one of the very few women hospital administrators in the country. Her passion for healthcare, positive outlook towards life and self-effacing nature make her stand out, finds out Sapna Dogra

It has been about 19 months now since Anne Marie Moncure came to India and took over the reins of Indraprastha Apollo Hospital as its first-ever foreign Managing Director. In her words, “These 19 months have been full of excitement, exuberance and a new discovery every day.” Sitting in her office in Apollo Hospital, one cannot help but feel the positive energy she exudes. At first instance what strikes about Moncure is her humble and pleasingly unassuming disposition, and a certain youthfulness that belies her age. A healthcare administrator par excellence, runner, swimmer, wife, mother, grandmother …Moncure is a multi-dimensional personality who is managing her personal and professional life with élan.

A Thorough Healthcare Professional

Moncure has 23 years of global experience as healthcare administrator in top-notch healthcare institutions in the US, France, Switzerland, England and Scotland. She is a Diplomate of the American College of Healthcare Executives and is licensed as a long-term care administrator. According to her, “I thought it would be an added advantage to have an MBA degree. So, I did an MBA course from the Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.”

Her forte is specialisation in cost containment programmes, improving organisational efficiency, developing critical pathways to improve outcomes as well as developing and managing operation budgets that contain aggressive unit cost targets and operating margins. Since 1981, when she started her healthcare career as communications and marketing specialist at the Texas Heart Institute, Moncure indeed has come a long way. Before joining Apollo in 2004, she was the Vice President at Sisters of Charity Providence Hospitals, Columbia, South Carolina for five years (from 1998 to 2003). “There, I was responsible for medical staff development, physicians and auditing, and occupational medicine programme, among others,” Moncure informs.

Coming To India

It was destiny that brought her to India. Moncure had met Dr Pratap C Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Hospitals in the US and was impressed with his vision and persona. And when she saw the advertisement for the post of the Apollo Hospital Delhi's MD, she applied for it pronto. The email she wrote bounced back. However, she took out a printout of that email and posted it to India. After a few days, she got a call from Sangeeta Reddy at three in the morning. “It was fate,” she exclaims.

But was not there some fear in coming to a developing country like India? “Well, I was not alien to India because I had Indian friends and Indian doctors have made it big overseas,” she reasons. Of course, people dissuaded her from coming to India on the grounds that India would be too hot, there would be cultural differences and few amenities. Being a management graduate, she weighed the risk-return ratio and saw the Indian experience would be good in terms of return. “I saw this as a golden chance and decided to come to India,” she says.

Being In India

On August 16, 2004, Moncure landed in Delhi with her husband John Moncure. Remembering her initial days in India, Moncure says, “There were challenges in terms of traffic chaos, learning the unfamiliar names of places and the people. Too much information was coming too fast and for the first few months I did not have any peripheral vision.”

On her first day at Apollo when she went for rounds, her feet were hurting and she found the hospital too big. “I was amazed to find that the hospital had 200 consultants, whom I mistook for problem-solvers like in the US. Later, I came to know that doctors here are called consultants,” she reminisces, adding she has been overwhelmed by the love and warmth she received from the people and the government despite being a foreigner.

Life in general has been good for Moncures in India. Nevertheless, there are certain issues that are exasperating, reveals Moncure. “I am frustrated by bureaucratic hurdles, which I feel is because I am a foreigner and I do not understand the systems.” She was also let down by her home staff, who, despite getting all the facilities started fleecing them. It is very difficult to imagine that an MD of such a big hospital goes out for her own grocery shopping every Saturday. But Moncure has no qualms doing her own shopping and cooking.

Life In Apollo

Working in Apollo Hospital is like working in any international hospital, claims Moncure. Of course, she continues, the difference is in the way business is done here than in the US because Indian corporates are very different from American ones. For example, she wanted the cutting time for surgeries at 7:00 am just like the US, but she understood that it was not feasible here in India and it was an unrealistic expectation. According to her, “People are the same everywhere and in a hospital the common thread amongst all employees is the care for the people. We need to constantly think of ways to make the work environment a better, livelier and relaxing place.” Is it any surprise that she makes it a point to meet and sit with a patient every day talking to them?

Under Moncure's aegis, Apollo became the first hospital in the country to get JCI accreditation, which is a huge achievement. Elaborating the accreditation process, Moncure says it has made patients aware of their rights and responsibilities during treatment at a hospital. Every patient has the right to know details about his diagnosis, disease and line of treatment. Besides, the hospital also ensures the safety of its staff members. “To go for JCI accreditation required huge changes from simple things like having smoke doors and signage on doors for patients' and employee's benefits. Going for JCI accreditation has raised the cost, but it brought the team together,” Moncure explains.

Healthcare In India

Having worked in many places, Moncure is a good judge of Indian healthcare and she says, Indian hospitals are as good as any in the west as far as equipment, technology and expertise are concerned. The only thing that irks her is that people haven't yet shunned the relics of the Raj era. “The real challenge lies in empowering the people,” she avers and adds that we have to grow people by giving them responsibilities. She feels medical tourism is a good thing that has happened to India because it would help bring more money, which can be used for better purposes like empowering the people, which will eventually help the economy. However, there are logistical and infrastructure issues to be sorted out.

Humble Beginnings

Moncure is oldest of four siblings who were all adopted. Her father was a mechanic and mother was a homemaker. “We all grew up as special children and were raised with lots of love and affection. We were not very affluent but managed to lead a decent life.” She went to a Catholic school and was the first girl in the family to study in a university where she had double majors in English and psychology. She was a high school all American swimmer and has won numerous awards running in ten kilometre and half-marathon races.

But most of her childhood was spent in visiting hospitals accompanying her mother, who had a debilitating disease. It was then she was drawn to healthcare. And from a very young age of 15, she started volunteer work as a Candy Striper, at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, New York. Though a practicing Buddhist she is keeping her Catholic heritage.

Achievements

She feels raising three great children is one of her greatest achievements. She also became a grandmother last year. She has started a number of free healthcare initiatives. Getting JCI accreditation for the Apollo is yet another big achievement.

Living In Today

Moncure's motto is: Live each day as if it were the last day of your life. “In 24 years of my working life, I have never woken up not feeling excited about the day,” says Moncure. She doesn't have a single role model but people have influenced her for different reasons at different points of life. Her friend Beth's outlook towards life fascinated Moncure and made her a positive person. She admires Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton. Her mother, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa are role models for their sheer compassion and humility. She met the Dalai Lama, which was one of the greatest moments of her life. She discussed with him healthcare needs of the people, children's education, Tibet and life in India. An avid reader, Moncure reads French authors and also Indian ones. Currently, she is reading ‘The Argumentative Indian’ by Amartya Sen. She has also read Arundhati Roy's ‘The God of Small Things’. VS Naipaul is her favourite author. In fact, VS Naipaul's books influenced her decision to come to India. Gurucharan Das is yet another Indian writer she thinks highly of.

A People's Person

Moncure wants that each employee should feel that this is his/her own business. She wants everyone to be accountable and take ownership. “Each and every job and function inside the hospital right from housekeeping to food and beverage is important,” she professes. She wants to train the right talent and strongly advocates development of a second line of leaders. She has put in systems in processes like providing equity amongst employees. “People have to think out of the box and the size of the box depends on experience. There are options for the advancement of employees; for instance if there's a vacancy, it is put up on the bulletin board and all employees are encouraged to apply and interviews are conducted and those who can't make it, their core strengths are looked into and accordingly they are allocated work. Soon, there will be a co-operative store for the employees, which will be for the employees and will also be run by them.” She has also ushered in the fun culture wherein fun events are organised for the employees, which makes them happy. Happiness of employees is very important because it gets translated into patients' happiness, adds Moncure. These days Moncure is busy setting up the Apollo hospital in NOIDA. The 50-bed facility with secondary and tertiary services will be opened in April.

sapnadogra@gmail.com