TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin expressed optimism that the vertical hospital, currently under construction in Surabaya, East Java, would serve as an Indonesian super hub for medical treatments for cancer, heart diseases, and stroke.

"I hope that it will serve as a super hub, to where big hospitals in Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, and East Nusa Tenggara, can transfer their patients if they need specific treatments," he noted in a written statement received on Monday.

Sadikin remarked that the hospital is being built as an effort to transform health services in Indonesia and support the Ministry of Health's programs aimed at actualizing equitable medical services in all regions in the country.

"This hospital will stand among 408 other hospitals scattered in 38 districts and cities in East Java," he stated.

Construction of the hospital has been underway on an area of 5.24 hectares of land on Indrapura Street, Krembangan Sub-district, Surabaya City.

According to the plan, the vertical hospital will have four towers or buildings, with tower A functioning as the main building, tower B as a center for heart diseases, tower C as a center for brain treatments, and tower D housing cancer treatments.

Development of the hospital has been declared as part of the government's national priority program. It is expected to provide comprehensive services, especially those related to catastrophic diseases.

Surabaya was selected as the home to the vertical hospital, considering that the city is highly accessible from various regions and its airport accommodates several direct flights from and to countries in Asia, Europe, the US, and Australia.

The hospital is also expected to cut queues of heart, cancer, and stroke treatments in East Java and its surroundings while strengthening the existing referral health service system.

Moreover, the government is planning to develop the vertical hospital as an educational hospital that functions as a center for education, research, and health service development.

The Ministry of Health is also developing a similar hospital in Makassar City, South Sulawesi, as a super hub for cancer, heart diseases, and stroke for people residing in Maluku, Sulawesi, Papua, and Kalimantan.

ANTARA

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