KPJ Healthcare Berhad

KPJ to invest RM1b in new hospitals

It plans to open seven to eight more in next 5 years

KUALA LUMPUR: KPJ Healthcare is looking to add seven to eight more new hospitals to its stable in the next five years.

President and managing director Amiruddin Abdul Satar said the new hospitals would be in states such as Pelis, Pahang, Sarawak, Malacca, Johor, Perak and the Klang Valley, among others.

From its existing base of 25 hospitals, this would mean that in five years' time, KPJ could have around 33 hospitals.

Amiruddin said that the expansion could cost a total of RM1 bil. "For some, we have yet to call for a tender, so I can't give a figure for sure, but it is about RM1 OOmil per project," he told the press after a luncheon meeting hosted by M1DF Investment and MIDF Research.

Meanwhile, he said that KPJ could spend about RM1 OOmil per year in capital expenditure.

"Spending about RM1 OOmil per year is common for us, both in buying equipment and paying for progress of instruction for new hospitals," said Amiruddin.

KPJ most recently opened the RM130mil KPJ Rawang Specialist Hospital two months ago. KPJ Rawang is the 25th hospital under the KPJ group and has a capacity of 160 beds.

On July 1, KPJ will be opening another specialist hospital in Muar, Johor. KPJ Rawang is the first hospital fully equipped with and utilising the cloud based system, where all clinical information, medical reports and documents are cloud based in KPJ's
server in Kuala Lumpur.

It was reported earlier that the group would be looking to migrate there to four hospitals onto the cloud based system every year.

"We have introduced cloud systems in three of our hospitals. When we opened these three new hospitals, basically we spend very little on site but we link it to our server in KL," he said yesterday.