China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) has broken ground on a 100-bed hospital in the southern Iraqi province of Dhi Qar.
The facility will be built on a turnkey basis, financed from the $950m Dhi Qar Reconstruction Fund.
CSCEC said the 32,000-sq-m facility in Suq Al-Shuyukh district west of Basra will offer a full range of medical services over six floors.
Iraq also finalised a deal with CSCEC to build a “medical city” in Dhi Qar that will eventually have seven hospitals, giving a combined capacity of 750 beds.
The future programme will consist of the following:
- A 200-bed general hospital
- A 100-bed paediatric hospital
- A 100-bed women’s hospital
- A 100-bed haematology and oncology centre
- A 100-bed internal medicine and gastroenterology unit
- A 50-bed emergency hospital
- An outpatient campus.
The choice of CSCEC to build the complex was approved by Iraq’s Council of Ministers in January (see further reading).
Auxiliary facilities will include centres for forensic medicine, research and training, a blood bank and accommodation for medical professionals. The project’s first phase will cover an area of 9.3ha, with the second phase adding another 3.9ha.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said the provision of medical services was his government’s “primary focus”, and would be assisted by larger structural reforms.
Iraq is planning to build some 16 hospitals, each with 100 beds, throughout the country. Five of these have been launched this month.
In November, during the opening of the Iraqi–Korean Specialized Hospital in Baghdad’s Medical City, Al-Sudani said the government was working to advance Iraq’s healthcare sector by collaborating with “renowned international companies”.
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