The Mayapada Group plans to invest up to Rp 700 billion (US$48.209 million) by the end of this year to build its eighth hospital in the country in Buahbatu district, Bandung, West Java.

Mayapada Healthcare CEO Jonathan Tahir said the hospital would provide the latest and most sophisticated medical facilities, especially for cancer treatment. The planned hospital will have 14 floors on a 16,274-square meter plot of land.

“It will have 300 beds and 100 doctors,” Jonathan said after a groundbreaking ceremony for the hospital’s construction on Thursday.

The hospital follows a promise made by Mayapada Group founder Dato Sri Tahir, who received the Bhakti Bandung Persada Award from the Bandung city administration in 2017.

The award is given to individuals for major service for Bandung development.

After receiving the award, Tahir said he would build a hospital on a plot of land where a Mayapada Bank office was once located. He also said the hospital should be able to serve patients of the middle to lower economic levels.

West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil said the location was changed to the present place because the former bank office, which is an old building, did not meet earthquake safety requirements.

“But the focus is still the same, to serve the middle to lower levels of society,” said Ridwan, who, as Bandung mayor at the time, had bestowed the award on Tahir last year.

Jonathan said a hospital was a long-term investment that built its reputation and thrived upon people’s trust. He said the first thing his company would do is try to earn people’s trust.

He also promised that any member of the National Health Insurance (JKN) would be welcomed at any Mayapada hospital.

“We are lucky that, as a group, our finances are still very much [in order],” he said, adding that payments for JKN claims by the state insurer, the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan), were indeed a bit delayed, but added that the company was not worried about that.

The construction of the hospital in Bandung is expected to conclude by the end of 2019.

Jonathan said the company would also focus on the development of another two hospitals, one in Surabaya, East Java, and the other on Jl. Rasuna Said in South Jakarta.

He also said his side was mulling to fulfill the governor’s proposal for building smaller hospitals across the province.

“We are committed [to helping], but we have to sit together with the governor’s team to decide how to do it,” he said, adding that they would meet in the weeks to come.

Ridwan had proposed that the West Java administration and the Mayapada Group build smaller hospitals in various places of the province in a public-private partnership.

“This is an example of progressive bureaucracy, in which development programs [of a region] can be shared with [capable parties],” he said.

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