COMMENT | Petaling Jaya requires a public general hospital. This has been widely acknowledged for a long time and is unlikely to be disputed.

For decades, one of Selangor’s most densely populated and economically significant urban areas has relied on nearby public hospitals in Kuala Lumpur and Shah Alam, as well as on overburdened, small health clinics and the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).

UMMC is not legally classified as a government hospital and does not function like one.

However, building a new 800 to 1,000-bed general hospital in Petaling Jaya is not straightforward. It may have been so 30 years ago, but no longer. This is not a game of SimCity where a single click-and-drag immediately gets you land, a building, and a fully staffed hospital.

A modern general hospital of around 1,000 beds is not just a building. It is a small township. It needs...