New International Hospital: Yogyakarta, Central Java

There are numerous hospitals in Yogyakarta and all of different classes. I seriously hope you don’t need to attend a hospital on your trip to Yogyakarta, but if you did, then the newly opened International hospital would be the place to go. The Jogja International Hospital (JIH), was opened on Saturday by Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X.

Built on a five-hectare plot on Jalan Ring Road Utara 160 in Sleman, the five-story hospital offers 179 beds in fully air-conditioned rooms, including 23 VIP and six Super VIP treatment rooms as Sri Wahyuni explains:

The 17,000 square-meter modern design hospital offers 20 polyclinics to the public, and contains a full complement of modern medical facilities.

Among the hospital’s facilities are a surgery room, an intensive care unit (ICU), a 24-hour emergency unit, a 24-hour laboratory, a physiotherapy unit, and a sophisticated radiology unit.

“We are also supported by some 70 specialist doctors in 17 different fields,” JIH executive director Suprijanto Rijadi said at the opening ceremony.

Rijadi said the hospital had to cooperate with a number of foreign health institutions in order to meet international healthcare standards.

Raffles Hospital Singapore was consulted on referrals, while Macau’s Sunny Group was consulted on the use of Chinese medicine and the Islamic Hospital Consortium of Malaysia was called in for its expertise on the application of sharia in modern hospitals.

JIH is managed by PT Unisia Medika Farma, a company owned by Badan Wakaf UII, a body of the Yogyakarta-based Indonesian Islamic University (UII). The company is tasked with managing donations to Badan Wakaf UII for religious or community purposes.

“Our pledge is to become a hospital of excellence in the region and to thus make JIH the pride of Yogyakarta,” Rijadi said.

Sultan Hamengkubowono X said at the hospital opening he hoped the establishment of the first international hospital in the province would help meet the demand for high quality healthcare among Indonesians, who were otherwise going overseas to access such services.

According to the Sultan, some 16 million Indonesians had the purchasing power for high-end healthcare. However, only neighboring countries such Malaysia and Singapore had seriously targeted this potential market.

“They apply the so-called ‘jemput bola‘ strategy, which literally means offering pick-up services for the patients and their family. They take care of the accommodation. They even take care of the passports,” he said.

Meanwhile, UII Rector Edy Suandy Hamid said it was time for Yogyakarta to include healthcare as one of the important economic pillars in its development strategy, apart from tourism and education.

Quoting a report, Edy said some 300,000 people — half of them Indonesians — came to Singapore annually just for medical services.

“We can learn from Singapore in this case. If we are really professional about it I do believe that making Yogyakarta a destination for healthcare services won’t be just a dream,” Hamid said.