GLENEAGLES MOVING INTO INTEGRATED SERVICES WITH RM130 MIL MIXED DEVELOPMENT

By Saraswathi Muniappan

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 (Bernama) -- Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur is on
track to creating a niche for itself by offering a host of related services to
its private medical and healthcare services, all within the same area.

Work has already started on the RM130 million (US$38 million)
mixed-development on a 2.02-hectare piece of land next to its current medical
centre near here, said its chief executive officer, Amir Firdaus Abdullah.

The new phase is expected to be ready by 2013, and it will not only house a
10-storey medical block and an integrated laboratory system, but also service
apartments.

It will also have a hotel to provide accommodation for patients' relatives
as well as seven local and international food and beverage outlets, Amir
disclosed to Bernama in an interview recently.

"These new buildings will further widen the services provided by us," he
said, adding that there will also be about 2,000 car parks.

He said Gleneagles has been continuously investing to enhance its services
and equipment to move towards a fully digitized private healthcare provider.

"Last year, we invested about RM18 million (US$5.2 million) and this year we
will invest another RM20 million (US$5.8 million) to RM25 million (US$7.3
million) for equipment upgrading," said Amir.

Among the latest equipment to be intalled in the hospital is the Biplane
Flat Detector Cardiac Angiography System in its renowned Cardiac Catheterisation
Laboratory (CATH Lab).

The biplane system has a double C-arm flat detector that reduces the amount
of contrast (dye) used compared to a conventional angiogram procedure without
compromising the quality of the image. This provides a safer alternative
particularly for patients with renal complications as well as for children.

The hospital has also brought in a digital mammography equipment with new
image dimension and detection, a Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA), which
is a Bone Mineral Densitometer used for early detection of osteoporosis, a
condition that often affects women after menopause, and an Endoscopic Ultrasound
(EUS), an instrument combining endoscopy and ultrasound to obtain high quality
ultrasound images of organs in the body.

The private healthcare provider is also among the 12 Malaysian private
healthcare providers to benefit from Singapore's move to allow its citizens to
use their compulsory medical savings or Medisave, to pay for private care
aboard.

Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur commenced operations on Aug 1, 1996. It has
a 330-bed tertiary care hospital and a separate Medical Office Building (MOB)
which accommodates consultants of various specialties and sub-specialties.
-- BERNAMA