Qatar’s Public Works Authority (Ashghal) is floating a new tender for the construction of a mass casualty trauma hospital in the north of Doha. The project is part of a new “medical city” to be built on a site in Duhail, next to Qatar University.
The 1,100 bed hospital is slated for completion in 2022, one year later than initially scheduled, according to the tender published in local newspapers today.
It will be a trauma level 1 unit – a complete trauma care system that will be open 24 hours a day and staffed by general and specialist surgeons.
The project is being jointly developed by the Supreme Council of Health (SCH) and Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).
Neither group was immediately available for comment, and Ashghal declined to provide any more information to Doha News about the project.
The public works authority is currently drawing up a short-list of companies who will be invited to tender for “project and construction management consultancy services” to manage the build.
Construction would begin in early 2015.
Current trauma facilities
Trauma cases are currently dealt with at Hamad General Hospital in central Doha, which has specialists in trauma, emergency medicine and critical care, among other disciplines.
The hospital’s trauma intensive care unit looks after around 45 adult patients a month, with injuries including multiple trauma, trauma to the chest, abdomen, multiple fractures, and head and spinal injuries.
One of the most frequent causes of trauma injuries in Qatar is road traffic accidents. According to the summary of a report issued last month by Qatar University’s Road Safety Studies Center, Qatar had more than one million traffic accidents in the six years from  2007 to 2012 – 1,289 of them fatal.
In total, the accidents have cost Qatar QR17.6 billion, with Qatar spending approximately 2.7 percent of its GDP each year on traffic accidents.
New medical facilities planned
According to the SCH’s most recently-published annual report in 2012, 11 new hospitals and medical research facilities are expected to be built in Qatar by 2022.
These include three hospitals dedicated to single, male laborers – in Mesaieed, Ras Laffan and Doha’s industrial area – which specialize in trauma and injury, occupational health and physiotherapy.
They are to be operated by private providers and slated to open next year.
Other new facilities include a New Women’s Hospital; an ambulatory and minimally-invasive surgery hospital; a communicable diseases hospital; a neuroscience institute; and a new cancer hospital.
There are also plans underway for two new medical commission centers and 18 new primary health care centers. The pediatric urgent care center at Al Saad is also scheduled for redevelopment. Plans for the 10,000sqm plot are in the design phase.
The new facilities are being built to provide sufficient healthcare for Qatar’s rapidly expanding population – now in excess of 2.1million.
Figures released last week by the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS), showed that in 2012 that there were 25.3 doctors per 10,000 people in Qatar – a significant change from 2010, when there were 34.9 doctors per 10,000 people.
What are your thoughts on the plans?
I would be happy with another shopping mall, the old ones are boring and so 2012.
How about completing Sidra and Hamad Medical City first? SMH!
Because things should be done one at a time right ? Idiot.
Another insightful comment from the LIOLI.
considering Sidra is years behind schedule I’d say that’s a fair statement from Saffa.
@desertcard:disqus don’t feed the troll. Makes him come back for more.
Lol.. Damned if you do damned if you don’t.. I swear Qatar expat community have become like cancer stifling development instead of contributing to it… Even when a new hospital is being built to serve the 90% expat community people find something to criticize about
The one I’ve learnt from Doha News is the following:
لا تØرق اعصابك
Seriously, just ignore the negativity unless it’s well-deserved. Otherwise, you’re blood pressure will spike every time you visit the site and read the comments
Maybe you should limit yourself to reading mainstream local newspapers. That will put your mind at ease. You seem hypersensitive to views that differ from yours.
And without this “cancer” you would be no where.
And maybe if people learned to properly drive and maintain control of their LCs there would be no need. Seeing that’s the majority of trauma cases.
@a_qtr:disqus Not all of us expats are a “cancer” on the society, a lot of us wish nothing but the best for Qatar. As the saying goes, a rising tides lifts all ships.
I have been living in Doha since 1994 and I have seen Doha and Qatar change completely from what it used to be like. During this time many expats of all types have come and gone through Qatar I am the first to admit there are a lot of expats that shouldn’t be here and don’t have the right mindset for living here, all they care about are tax free salaries and and come and treat the locals and poorer expats as colonial subjects. A lot expect Qatar to be as “developed” as other countries and regions that took millennia to get to where they are and expats here should be cognizant of this underlying fact, Qatar is a “Developing Country” so don’t expect everything to be perfect, and if you have issues with that you shouldn’t be here.
However on the other hand I would say the vast majority of us who want nothing but the best for the country as we live here as well and it benefits us as well to have an efficient and modern society that we can call our second home. I for one could easily be working back home in North America and probably make more money there as housing costs here negate any “tax-free” benefits, I know amongst my expat friends ( long term and newly arrived) I am not alone in this mindset.
I choose to live here because I like Qatar, my family has been here for decades, I went to school here, most of my friends live here and its an exciting place to live and be a part of and contribute to. I find the vast majority of Qatari’s and warm and hospitable people and if expats could just get over the cultural barriers and also in many cases their hangups and get to know Qatari’s on a personal level they will find out too.
On this specific issue, I for one think this is a good thing and also wonder why people would criticize it.