HMC partners SickKids for new hospital

DOHA: With the scheduled opening date approaching fast, Hamad Medical Corporation

(HMC) has signed a historic five-year partnership deal with Canada-based Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) to advise on setting up state-of-the-art services at the Children’s Hospital.

The hospital, to open in 2012, will arguably, be the first tailor-made paediatric healthcare facility in the region.

The new partnership aims at helping HMC establish a sustainable world-class hospital.

“SickKids will help ensure the delivery of quality healthcare for all the children within the Hamad project,” said Cathy Seguin, Vice President of International Affairs at SickKids.

“We will also look at educational and research perspectives of paediatric care and bring in teams consisting of staff and experts from SickKids to train and work with the faculty here. This is in line with our international strategy to share knowledge and technical know-how to help other organisations build their capacity,” she told The Peninsula.

SickKids will provide advisory services for the development and operation of the new 10-storeyed, 217-bed hospital located inside Hamad Medical City. SickKids team in Qatar will provide expert counsel in such areas as paediatric medicine, clinical services, surgical services, evidence based practice, family-centred care education, training and research, and help HMC to incorporate best international practices into the way that it provides

patient care.

“We are focusing on family centred care where child and the family will be catered for through a multi-disciplinary approach. The healthcare environment will be tailor-made for children, so that they are not afraid to go to hospital,” Seguin said

Children’s Hospital will have seven patient floors, Emergency Department, Radiology Department, Outpatient clinics, Inpatient surgical suite, Cardiac Catherization Unit (CCU), Surgical Intensive Care Unit, Burns Unit, Dialysis Unit, Cardiac Clinic Outpatient surgery, Hydrotherapy unit, family-centre and general medical support.

“Through this partnership, we will work very closely with SickKids to develop our New Children’s Hospital, which is designed according to international best practice standards on paediatric care. This is a very important project and partnership for us, and it is going to have a tremendous impact on health care in Qatar,” said HMC Managing Director Dr Hanan Al Kuwari.

“The SickKids International team carried out a comprehensive assessment of paediatric services in 2008,” said Dr Abdulla Al Kaabi, Project Director of the New Children’s Hospital.