‘Riyadh needs more hospitals to meet expansion of Saudi city’s northern areas’

Dubai: Riyadh can easily accommodate more – and bigger – hospitals despite already having over 100 such facilities, according to the CEO of one of the biggest Saudi healthcare companies.

Which opens up more opportunities for privately-owned hospital operators.

“There will not be much more of public sector investments in hospitals and clinics – the Saudi authorities want to have the private sector doing that,” said Bassam Chahine, CEO of SMC Hospitals, which owns two of the biggest hospitals in the Saudi capital.

“The number of hospitals in Riyadh is probably more than that in Oman, Kuwait and Qatar combined. But because of the magnitude of the population, Riyadh needs even its new hospitals to be much bigger.

“Typically, private sector operated hospitals in Dubai have 15- to 200 beds. In Riyadh, they tend to have higher capacities.”

SMC is putting those words into action – having started on three more hospital projects in and around Riyadh. The focus on this one city is warranted – Riyadh’s population is estimated at around 8 million and growing. There is Saudi Arabia expanding on the possibilities with the ‘Murabba’ development, which is creating a whole new downtown in Riyadh.

“We have selected north of Riyadh - in areas where many of the new mega-infrastructure is happening – for our new hospital investments,” said Chahine. “This is an almost 50 kilometer by 50 kilometer area.

“It’s expected that half of the resident base of Riyadh will be based in the northern parts of the city. Currently, in some of these areas, there are districts and many suburbs that are not covered by any hospital, even primary-care facilities.

“It’s up to private sector operators to go in and cover that gap in care and hospital beds. This is what SMC is doing – we expect to have the three new hospitals in north of Riyadh operational before 2030. This would more than double our capacity.”

The Saudi authorities have been consistent in promoting PPP (public-private partnership) models across key sectors, including in healthcare. (Other Gulf economies, notably the UAE, too has pursued this model, with significant new investments going into hospitals and specialty healthcare facilities funded by private or entities that have the backing of government holding companies.)

“An SMC consortium has been shortlisted to operate the SABIC Behavioral Care Specialist Hospital under PPP model,” said Chahine. “This is also an opex opportunity for us, and should be signing the contract soon.”

“Saudi Arabia has identified providing mental health support as one of the most urgent things that need to be covered. There are only 110 private beds in all of Saudi Arabia for mental health care.

“There was a lot of interest, from within Saudi Arabia and internationally, when the EoI (expressions of interest) was called for the Sabic mental health facility. Only five of the consortiums were selected to send in RFPs (request for proposal). Out of that, SMC was the preferred bidder.”