Developing Medical Tourism, Erick Thohir Invites Japanese Mitsui To Build A Hospital In Bali

Minister of BUMN, Erick Thohir. (Photo: Ministry of BUMN)

JAKARTA - State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Minister Erick Thohir said the government would start developing medical tourism in Bali. In fact, Erick claimed to have offered cooperation to build an international class hospital (RS) in Bali with Mitsui & Co Ltd.

For your information, Mitsui & Co is a Japanese company that has many shares in international hospitals in Southeast Asia, including in Malaysia and Singapore.

"We have land in Bali, that's 49 hectares. We want to upgrade this to a tourism facility. Yesterday the response was very good from Mitsui, Japan. Mitsui has a lot of shares in many hospitals in Southeast Asia," he said at the National Acceleration Coordination Meeting. Virtual Development of Five Super Priority Tourism Destinations (DPSP), Friday, November 27.

Erick said that his party did not want the hospital to use the brand from the hospital owned by Mitsui & Co in Singapore, but to use its own brand in Indonesia. But still with world class standards.

He hopes that with this world-class health facility, Indonesians will no longer fly to Singapore for treatment and choose domestic hospitals.

"This is what we want to explore, new potential in Bali. We will try and this could be new points of health tourism (medical tourism) in several places. But we will try it here (Bali) first," he explained.

Previously, the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said the government wanted to encourage the improvement of health facilities as well as encourage medical tourism to be utilized.

One of the efforts to encourage medical tourism is by opening an international hospital to bring in expert medical personnel from abroad.

"The BUMN Minister will work hard. There are 3-4 major hostels in Bali, Jakarta, Medan such as the Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins," said Luhut.