Pantai to invest RM40m on health tourism

TheEdgeDaily: Pantai Holdings Bhd will invest RM40 million next year to upgrade and set up new facilities as part of its plan to become a regional medical hub to tap into the lucrative health tourism market, said its director Dr Lim Cheok Peng.
The healthcare group will undertake the expansion plan to cater for foreign patients, and targets to be a regional medical hub in two to three years time.
The company saw a change in its major shareholders recently following the emergence of Singapore-based Parkways Holdings Ltd with a 31% stake.
Dr Lim, who is also the managing director of Parkways, said Pantai was renovating four wards at the Pantai Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur to create an international wing.
He said the group was also setting up a RM20 million facility in Batu Pahat, Johor that would handle the spill over of patients from its hospital in Ayer Keroh, Melaka where there is a substantial number of international patients from Indonesia.
“We will be embarking on a major drive as soon as we have our new facilities in place to cater for the needs of international patients.
“If medical tourism is going to take off in a big way, then obviously we have to move ahead and bring in all the infrastructure to be able to cope with all the foreign patients coming into Malaysia,” Dr Lim told reporters after the group’s AGM in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 30.
He said the international wing at Pantai Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur would be ready soon while the Batu Pahat facility was expected to be operational by the end of 2006.
At the moment, international patients only make up 5% of Pantai’s patients but Dr Lim wants to raise it to 15% within the next two to three years, specifically by attracting patients from Indonesia and Singapore.
On its outlook for next year, he said Pantai’s results in the first quarter ended September 30, 2005 indicated the group was moving in the right direction. During that period, the group posted a net profit of RM18.38 million.
Besides health tourism, Lim said Pantai had also invested some RM8 million on a multi-disciplinary cancer centre at the Pantai Medical Centre over the next six to nine months.
Asked about some members of parliament against a Singaporean-based company acquiring a major stake in Pantai, Lim said he had no knowledge on the matter except for what had been reported in the media.
He added that Parkway intended to remain a major shareholder in Pantai but there were no plans to make a general offer.