Don Muang will be the first district in Bangkok to obtain a new hospital under the "50 districts, 50 hospitals" policy, Public Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew said.
Dr Cholnan said this is one of the 13 programmes he announced on assuming the position.
He said the project would begin by selecting a location with an existing building in the district which would be further developed into a 120-bed hospital for primary care with rooms for emergency operations and medical services.
"What we will do is to improve the building to make it ready for medical services in the first 100 days. This can be done in other districts, if they are ready," Dr Cholnan said.
When asked about how medical staff would be sourced to work at the new facility in Don Muang, Dr Cholnan said the personnel would initially come from within the Public Health Ministry.
Dr Cholnan said he would like to see the hospitals under this policy to operate as a public organisation, similarly to the Ban Phaeo Hospital in Samut Sakhon's Ban Phaeo district.
He said he had set up a committee to implement the 13 policies he had announced. Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, the permanent secetary for public health, was in the process of setting up 13 sub-committees to oversee each of the 13 policies.
Dr Opas said one of the sub-committees would specifically handle the 50 districts, 50 hospitals policy.
