Shanghai Medea Hospital Group (Medea), a foreign joint venture, has invested more than 100 million yuan (US$12.08 million) in establishing the largest private hospital in Wenzhou, a prosperous industrial city in east China's Zhejiang Province.

The 150-bed hospital, Wenzhou Jianguo, will begin admitting patients on July 16, Lu Wei, a Medea vice-president, told China Daily yesterday.

Medea is a venture of US-based Medea Medical Technology and Shanghai Medea Investment Management Co Lt. The group has invested in industries including hospitals, medical and health appliances manufacturing, and bio-technology research and development.

Headquartered in Shanghai, Medea Hospital has invested a total of 2 billion yuan (US$240 million) in more than 20 hospitals, including six that are wholly-owned, in the Yangtze River Delta region.

"They (the 20 hospitals) have performed well, giving our company the impetus to further expand," said Lu.

The Wenzhou hospital is a case in point. Lu said plans call for expanding the hospital to accommodate as many as 500 beds within the next few years.

"In recent years, Wenzhou's economy has been developing rapidly. In addition, the local government has included the medical and health sector in the top six industries needed to attract investments in Wenzhou," he added.

Early this year, Meadea began negotiating with the Wenzhou local government for establishment of the hospital. Both sides reached an agreement on the project in March.

According to Lu, Wenzhou Jianguo Hospital is also the largest among its facilities in terms of capital and infrastructure.

The hospital, located in Lucheng, a busy commercial district in Wenzhou, has a floor space of more than 30,000 square metres. It is built on a large site, which allows for for future expansion, Lu said.

"Medea will inject more investment in the near future," Lu said.

The Wenzhou Jianguo hospital is a comprehensive hospital with various specialized departments, including internal medicine, surgery, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology.

Compared with private hospitals in Wenzhou, Wenzhou Jianguo Hospital enjoys a distinct advantage in that we have different teams of specialists to care for a wide variety of diseases, Lu added.

Medea has also appointed several medical specialists from Shanghai for consultations, a practice it has followed at other hospitals.

"The other advantage is that Wenzhou Jianguo Hospital is entering into some business areas that have been ignored by the other local hospitals, which makes it special and attractive," Lu said.

So far, hospitals funded by Medea have been mainly located in East China.

"Since the East China market is very huge, that still leaves many opportunities to do business and we are not taking other markets into consideration right now," said Lu.

In the next two to three years, Medea is expected to set up three-to-five more hospitals, according to the vice-president.

In Wenzou, beginning back in 1989 when the first privately-owned hospital was set up, 22 privately-owned hospitals with total investment reaching 200 million yuan (US$24.2 million) have now developed.