TALKS yesterday and tomorrow are likely to confirm that Phuket's newest hospital will be managed by a team from Bangkok's well-regarded Thonburi Hospital.

The pink-colored Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation hospital is due to open for outpatient treatment in eastern Phuket City in May, with the 129-bed facility to take in-patients from July.

Talks are to be held tomorrow with management at Vachira Hospital Phuket in Phuket City, the island's largest public facility, about ways the new hospital can reduce the load on existing facilties without unnecessary duplication.

Yesterday's meeting confirmed that Thonburi Hospital will manage the new facility for 16 months under the contract that has been agreed.

Administrative Organisation chief executive Paiboon Upatising says that while the new hospital on the road to Koh Sireh will be private, it will also take public patients and be modelled more on Phuket City's Mission Hospital than Phuket's other two private hospitals.

He said he anticipated that the new facility would gain its formal hospital accreditation within the standard five-year period.

Vachira Hospital Phuket and Thaland Hospital have plans to expand as Phuket's population grows and spreads and the island becomes one large ''Phuket City.''