The budget has been earmarked for Phyathai Hospitals 1, 2, and 3 to help them provide a full array of services, including treatment for cancer, heart disease and other illnesses, the company's chairman Wichai Thongtang said. He said the plan, when implemented, would completely overhaul of the hospital's operations.

"It is undertaken with a parallel move to adjust the organisational culture aimed at getting executives to understand how physicians think. We also want them to exchange ideas. In the past, executives rarely communicated with doctors," said Wichai, whose son At took charge as the company's chief executive in October 2005.

The five-year plan, which will last through 2010, is a joint exercise between Prasit Pattana and Medical International of Harvard University.

The company has been embroiled in legal battle in the Central Bankruptcy Court with a former major shareholder Arthit Urairat. The proceedings have affected the firm's investment plans, Wichai said.

The Central Bankruptcy Court recently accepted Arthit's petition to withdraw the firm's plan administrator and abolish its current business rehabilitation plan, citing its opinion that the plan was illegitimate.

"I admit the case has had an impact on the company's investment plan and it has taken more than a year's time [to resolve it]. We have since decided to cancel a planned merger with Paolo Medic Hospital," he said.

Paolo Medic Hospital has also changed its plan and is now seeking to become a listed firm on the stock exchange, a process it expects to complete this year, he added.

The local medical service business has high growth potential and the Kingdom is poised to become a regional medical centre.

He expected mergers among hospitals to continue until next year.

The local centres could also be acquisition targets for Singaporean investors, he added.

"I took over Sikarin Hospital as a first target. I bought Paolo Hospital in 2000 and Phyathai Hospitals in 2003 because I believe they were prosperous businesses and they are protected when the political climate turns negative," he said.

Wichai, a former lawyer for Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in his asset concealment case, said the move to invest in hospitals had nothing to do with Thaksin's family.

He said that some people still thought of him as Thaksin's lawyer and considered him as part of Thaksin's camp.

"I don't want such speculation to affect the company," he said, "I insist that my family's hospital business has nothing to do with Thaksin."

Siriporn Chanjindamanee

The Nation