Foreign investment in hospitals welcome<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is opening its door for foreign
\nbusinesses seeking to invest in hospitals on the condition that
\nthe directors be locals, Minister of Health Sujudi said Saturday.<\/p>\n
\"If they (the foreigners) want to become chiefs of the finance
\nor administration section, there is no problem. But the director
\nof the hospital must be an Indonesian,\" Sujudi said.<\/p>\n
Another condition is that the foreign investors must have
\nlocal counterparts.<\/p>\n
In addition, the hospitals should not hire foreign physicians
\nunless no Indonesian is qualified enough in the field, Sujudi
\nadded.<\/p>\n
The minister admitted that Indonesia still lacks medical
\nexperts due to the rapid development of medical technology.<\/p>\n
Sujudi said that he had received information from the Foreign
\nInvestment Board that two foreign investors wanted to establish
\nhospitals in Jakarta and Tangerang, just west of here.<\/p>\n
He said he remembered that one of the two was from Australia.<\/p>\n
Not only Jakarta, but many other parts of the country are
\nstill in need of hospitals, Sujudi said, encouraging both local
\nand foreign investors to do the business.<\/p>\n
He underlined that the foreign investors should comply with
\nthe policy on the \"social function\" of hospitals.<\/p>\n
Under the policy, hospitals should provide 25 percent of their
\nbeds to poor people free of charge. However, in many cases this
\npolicy does not seem to work because of the government's slack
\nmonitoring. What's more, it is likely that poor people would not
\ndare enter the gate of an up-market hospital.<\/p>\n
Therefore, the government has introduced a new policy to
\noblige luxury hospitals to provide funds for the development of
\ncommunity health centers.<\/p>\n
\"The MMC (Metropolitan Medical Center) has done it. And I
\nthink some other hospitals, too, have done the same thing,\"
\nSujudi said.<\/p>\n
He encouraged private hospitals to take part in the
\ngovernment-sponsored health card program, scheduled to be
\nlaunched on the National Health Day on Nov. 12. Under the new
\nprogram, card holders will have access to free health
\nservice.(sim)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/foreign-investment-in-hospitals-welcome-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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