Batam - Former Vietnam Camp on Galang Island, Batam, Riau Islands, is planned to be built a special hospital for patients infected with Corona Virus. This location has actually been a cultural preservation for long.

Actually the Batam Business Entity (BP) regulates the area as one of tourist destinations that is still maintained and managed until now.

Vietnam Camp is a place where thousands of Vietnamese have fled their country for shelter. They were victims of civil war in their country.

Vietnamese refugees inhabited Galang Island around 1979. The conditions of Vietnam Camp must also be considered and require renovation, if necessary the government requires the island to Rohingya refugees.

The government seems serious about building a special hospital on Galang Island. Even the TNI (The Indonesian Armed Forces) Commander and Minister of PUPR (Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing) had come to Batam yesterday.

TNI Commander in Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said that the hospital could be a place of treatment, quarantine or observation for patients infected with the Corona Virus.

"There are about 1,000 rooms and there are special rooms for isolation," said Hadi while in Batam, Wednesday (3/4/2020).

Vietnam camp is really not worthy of being a refugee camp. A number of society reacted to the planning of Central Government.
Not only Batam residents, but entrepreneurs are also worried about the plan.

Batam Employers' Association (Apindo) Chairman Rafki Rasyid said the establishment of a hospital could cause restlessness in Batam business world.

Rafki said investors would be interested in building this special hospital into negative sentiment, and could have shifted its investment elsewhere.

"Investors in Batam are quite sensitive of this kind of issue. So we are worried that it will influence investors in Batam to be paranoid so that they could decide to invest in other regions or other countries," Rafki said.

He asked the government not to follow China’s step to build emergency hospitals to treat Corona, he said that in China alone the hospital had been closed again after receiving patients that had been successfully healed.