Medical cities: A new approach to healthcare in the Middle East
London UK- There has been a great paradigm shift over the past century. Governments and developers around the world have caught on in the race to mastermind, create and develop medical cities. These new Centres of Excellence offer medical facilities that are grouped together in one location, providing world-class healthcare to its country as a whole. In the MENA region, the emergence of medical cities is a relatively new phenomenon.
Medical cities are huge projects where everything is planned within the city itself; hospital, labs, medical education, rehabilitation, housing and, in some cases, even medical product companies. This in turn creates positive value propositions and potential growth to the country’s image and economic strength. The medical city sector is structured to provide a basic platform of healthcare services to all, with specialised treatment facilities offered at some private and public hospitals.
One could say that medical cities have always existed, but in truth, the medical cities of the past are more like small campuses containing only a few tertiary care facilities. (A prime example being Veterans Administration (VA) facilities in the United States.) It has only been over the last few years that we are truly seeing more holistic urban and master planning, allowing for the creation and development of actual cities where the primary purpose of the city is not to accommodate the growth or expansion of a region’s population, but for the sole purpose of medical treatment.
The medical city concept would appear to work better in larger underdeveloped countries, at least in terms of healthcare, where people already have to travel long distances to receive treatment. On their arrival, all the services needed are then in one central location. Naturally, there are advantages and disadvantages in centralising all healthcare services, but in the Middle East you have to see it from the locale point of view. Judging it from a European or American perspective is difficult, only because the preconditions are totally different.
In principle, the medical city is an excellent concept, but only if planned and executed with a clear vision of establishing a Centre of Excellence. It is not to be confused with a general Public Health system and needs to be developed as a facility that also promotes scientific research and high-end education. This will help ensure cutting-edge technology healthcare services in only a few chosen competency fields.
The benefits of knowledge and improved practices obtained in a medical city can then be shared across the whole healthcare system on the ‘when needed, where needed basis’. In this way medical cities can act as excellent tools to translate ‘pure and applied research’ in to ‘improved healthcare services to the patients’.
WHERE MEDICAL CITIES SUIT
The latest medical city concept is developing fast in the Gulf region with Saudi Arabia and other countries planning a major expansion of medical education to upgrade treatment and improve clinical training of doctors. This will also help maximise the region’s share of the booming medical tourism market. In Saudi Arabia alone, five new medical cities are planned to become operational within five years.
Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman alone have pledged almost US$4bn for just four medical cities. However, the biggest mega-project currently under way in the GCC is split between Riyadh and Jeddah, where the Ministry of Interior is funding construction of two medical cities, both known as King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Medical City, each with a 1,000- bed capacity costing SAR25bn (US$6.7bn).
Some of the best examples of new and developing medical cities in the Middle East are:
King Faisal Medical City (Abha, KSA)
King Abdulaziz Medical City/KSAUHS (Riyadh, KSA)
King Khalid Medical City (Dammam, KSA)
Hamad Medical City (Doha, Qatar)
Sheikh Khalifa Medical City (Abu Dhabi, UAE)
International Medical City (Muscat, Oman)
Dubai Healthcare City (UAE)
King Fahad Medical City (Riyadh, KSA).
In essence, the MENA region is a prime location for these developments due to geographic and economic environmental factors such as:
Land and space for huge developments available for a reasonable price or by government
Growing population and urban cities
Improving transport infrastructure and a mobile population
Need and/or political order to improve healthcare services
Available government budget/attractive profit margins in healthcare due to healthcare insurance.
INTEGRATING EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Not only will medical cities help to enhance and deliver world-class facilities and treatment, they will also help to improve the quality of medical education by establishing internationally-compatible medical education, alongside contributing towards raising the standards of practicing medicine. This is strategically important as it allows the creation of medical universities as part of the medical cities, producing much-needed doctors in greater numbers.
But within the Gulf, and despite enormous investments in educational, clinical and research collaborative initiatives with some of North America’s most renowned medical schools and institutions (Weill-Cornell, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins and Harvard), Gulf states’ ability to recruit and retain highly qualified clinicians and academics remains a major challenge.
Although the shortage of medical professionals is a worldwide phenomenon, it is particularly severe in the six Gulf Co-operation Council countries: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman. According to World Health Statistics 2010, the average ratio of doctors to population in the Gulf countries is 20 doctors per 10,000 people, compared to around 40 per 10,000 in Europe.
The Gulf states clearly recognise this challenge and are trying to attract medical researchers and faculty, particularly from Arab and Muslim countries, by offering financial and social incentives. For example, Saudi Arabia approved a law in 2007 to allow suitably qualified foreign researchers resident in the country to apply for Saudi citizenship. Scientists who have been in Saudi Arabia continuously for 10 years or more and those with relatives who hold Saudi citizenship will also be given preference. This April Saudi Arabia announced a plan to recruit scores of experts to support its research programmes by issuing a free of charge visa for scientists.
Whether these incentives will be enough to attract the large numbers of quality medical faculty and researchers needed, both now and in the near future, is still open to question. However, with the population rising and changing demographics, the increase in demand for healthcare facilities has no anticipatable slowdown. The figures are overwhelming, especially between predicted private investment and government investment.
The population of the GCC reached 45 million in 2010 and is forecast to reach close to 57 million by 2015, growing by 5% a year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Saudi Arabia itself has earmarked US$28bn in 2014. By the year 2020 there will be the opportunity to add 100,000 beds.
IN SUMMARY
The upside of all this planned growth is that the healthcare sector in the GCC region has never been better, and new medical projects are increasing at an astonishing rate. Furthermore, as the authorities both increase allocated budgets and relax regulatory restrictions on private investment and partnerships, the industry will see even more projects coming through the pipeline to plug both the existing shortfall in healthcare provision, and the looming challenges of lifestyle and demographic factors.
Where will it end? In simple terms, medical cities suit certain markets and within the GCC states there are both the means and the commitment to adopt this much more holistic and centralised approach to healthcare planning and delivery. Medical cities are fast becoming a reality in a market where the demand is tangible and the delivery achievable.
