Medical suites for lease

Property developer Far East Organization has launched for lease almost half of the medical suites at its upcoming Novena Specialist Center to meet the growing demand in heathcare tourism.

Far East’s executive director for property services, Mr G L Yap, said yesterday at the launch of the 31 of its total 69 suites: “The supply of purpose-built medical suites has not kept up with demand. Occupancy at these facilities has maintained at a near full level since 2004.”

“And leasing rates have doubled across the board now. This shows that there is still pressure to satisfy this need and increase Singapore’s medical services capacity to serve demand from the region and the resident population,” he added.

The 69 medical suites, located on four floors, range from 548 to 1,442 square feet and cost about $8 to $9 psf in rental rates. Novena Specialist Center is scheduled to start operations next January.

The number of medical tourists has more than doubled since SingaporeMedicine, an initiative to strengthen Singapore as an Asian medical hub, was launched in 2003.

At that time, medical tourist arrivals stood at 200,000 but the number jumped to 646,000 in 2008.

Most of the medical tourists here come from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Middle East. The numbers from China and Vietnam are also increasing significantly.

Source : Today – 31 Aug 2010

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