PSU Phuket hospital to generate B1.6bn a year from foreigners

The news follows an event on Monday (Apr 3) to mark MBK Group donating 36 rai of land worth B400 million, located alongside the Red Mountain Golf Course in Kathu, to PSU to build the hospital.

The land donated was owned by the company’s affiliate in Phuket ‘MBK-R’. At the event on Monday MBK executives led by President and CEO Wichak Praditavanij, and Chief Finance Business Officer and Acting Chief Business Development Officer of MBK PCL, formally handed over the land to PSU President Asst Prof Dr Niwat Kaewpradab.

“We donate this piece of land to give back to society, especially from the health and education perspectives that MBK has been prioritising because we believe that these are the important basis of living,” Mr Wichak said.

“The hospital will allow people from six provinces ‒ Satun, Krabi, Ranong, Phuket, Phang Nga and Trang ‒ to have access to proper medical treatment. Tourists in Phuket and nearby provinces will be able to get medical services as well, which helps promote health tourism in Phuket,” he added.

The hospital is to be part of the Andaman International Health Center project, for which Cabinet on Oct 11 last year approved a budget of B5.116bn.

The hospital itself is to cost B3.14bn.

Repeated at the event on Monday was that the hospital is also to be home to medical training courses producing at least 197 people with specific expertise per year, and serve a base for training and producing at least 1,000 people per year in health sciences and medical tourism. 

The facility is predicted to provide treatment services to referral patients with complex diseases from outside Phuket at least 13,500 times a year.

The 500 bed hospital is also expected to provide treatment to at least 25,000 in-patients and at least 300,000 out-patients a year.

The hospital is also to serve as a research centre and “create world-leading health science innovations and also as a base to support medical tourism, that is, as a Medical Hub,” Mr Wichak said.

Not mentioned in the local government reports but featured in the MBK promotional video announcing the donation of the land was that the new PSU hospital is expected to generate B1.6bn in revenue ‘for Thailand’ from visiting foreigners each year.

Construction of the hospital is expected to begin next year, and be completed by 2027, in time for ‘Phuket Expo 2028’, if Thailand wins its bid for Phuket to host the World Specialised Expo 2027/28.