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Japanese medical giant signs up with Grameen Bank for hospitals

AFP, Dhaka
Japan's largest medical chain will build two new hospitals in Bangladesh to grab a share of the estimated $330 million now spent annually on overseas health care, officials said Wednesday.
Tokushukai Medical Corporation signed an agreement with Bangladesh's Grameen Bank in Tokyo last month to operate two 500-bed multi-speciality hospitals in Dhaka and Chittagong, Grameen Chairman Muhammad Yunus told AFP Wednesday.
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"With an investment of $75 million, this is going to be the largest privatehealth sector investment in Bangladesh," he said.
The Japanese chain operates 250 hospitals, nurse stations and clinics worldwide.
This is the second major investment in Bangladesh by a hospital company in the past month. In January, India-based Apollo Hospitals Group said it would invest $35 million with a Bangladesh partner to build a 450-bed hospital in Dhaka.
Private clinics, nursing homes and small hospitals targeted at Bangladesh's small but growing middle class have proliferated since the early 1990s when the country firmly committed itself to a free market economy.
Most are small, however, and offer a limited range of services.
Although nearly half Bangladesh's 140 million population still lives on less than a dollar a day, the country's rich elite and growing middle class have sought medical help abroad because of concerns such as blood tainted with HIV.
Health Minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain appealed to doctors in December to ensure adequate blood screening to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS.
A Grameen-Tokushukai foundation will operate the two hospitals, which will be the largest Japanese investment in Bangladesh, officials of the country's investment promotion office said.
Grameen Bank, which began as a small pilot project by Yunus, is known worldwide for its pioneering work giving small loans to the poor to help them set up businesses.
The hospitals will have special programmes to treat the poor, Yunus said. "For the poor, we'll charge the minimum. Others will be charged less than what they pay abroad," he added.
Economist Moinul Islam of Chittagong University has said the growing private health care sector in Bangladesh would lead to worse services for the poor because doctors at existing hospitals would move to the new ones.
The government said in January it would provide funds to train 3,000 new doctors.