Iraq Construction News: Construction begins on medical city in Baghdad

Work has begun on building an integrated, modern medical city in the centre of Baghdad, slated to provide services to citizens free of charge, the Iraqi government announced last week.

In building the medical city, officials seek to “boost the state of medical services offered to citizens especially in view of the increase in the capital’s population in the past six years”, said Ali al-Allaq, secretary-general of the Iraqi cabinet.

The new medical city is under construction on the site of the former al-Rasheed hospital, an area of about 100,000 square metres, he told Mawtani.

Al-Allaq said the 1,200-bed facility will include 12 medical sections, including oncology, neurological surgery, spinal cord medicine, haematology, cardiology, obstetrics, communicable diseases and other specialisations the country still lacks.

Building the new city will cost about $350 million and will take about three years, under the supervision of “reputable local and European companies”, he said.

The facility will play a dual role as treatment centre and teaching hospital, giving medical students “the opportunity to practise medicine in the final year of their education”, said Deputy Health Minister Dr. Khamees al-Saad.

He told Mawtani his ministry contracted German, British and Japanese companies to import modern medical equipment for the entire hospital.

Services will be provided free of charge to citizens, al-Saad added.

Many doctors internationally trained

Staffed by Iraqi doctors currently training at internationally-reputable universities such as Harvard University, the University of Texas, the University of London and Tokyo University, personnel at the hospital will be qualified to perform complex surgeries, al-Saad said.

Laith al-Salehi, director of the ministry’s engineering department, described the city as a series of eight high-rise buildings, each with 12-20 floors, and each with a medical specialty.

The compound includes gardens, restaurants, meeting and training halls, and modern laboratories, he said.

Three European and two local companies are implementing the project, considered the largest in the capital in 30 years, he added.

The compound will help ease “overwhelming traffic at the other hospitals in Baghdad, and it will have the capacity to absorb” medical cases from other Iraqi cities as well, al-Salehi said.

The facility will include a special children’s section and another dedicated to psychiatric medicine, he said.

Saleh al-Mutlaq, deputy prime minister for services, told Mawtani Iraq loses tens of millions of dollars annually on medical treatment outside the country.

“The medical city will save hard currency for the country, spent by Iraqis abroad” to treat conditions like cancer, heart problems, congenital deformities and problems caused by terrorist attacks, he said.

“The medical city will be staffed by excellent Iraqi doctors” and will contract western doctors to perform operations inside Iraq, he said, adding that it will “ease the burden on the citizens both financially and physically” because services will be free of charge.

Source: Al Shorfa