Dubai: Health care is about to be revolutionised with new modular prefabricated designs that will reduce the cost and time taken to build hospitals by 50 per cent compared with current costs, largely due to the innovative technology, automation and economies of scale. This benefit will eventually filter down as reduced health-care cost to patients.
UAE–based KEF Holdings has announced a partnership with an Australian design company specialising in hospitals, TAHPI Pty ltd, to start KEF-TAHPI design investing $350 million (Dh1.29 billion) in a prefabricated factory in India that has begun work already, and $100 million (Dh360 million) at a Jebel Ali facility that will be commissioned in 2016, to produce these designs. A design studio displaying 500 hospital designs has been set up at the Dubai HealthCare City (DHCC).
Speaking to Gulf News about the venture, Faizal E. Kottikollon, founder-chairman, KEF Holdings, said: “KEF and TAHPI have entered this alliance, mainly because we agree that access to quality health care is a basic human right. At the current high cost of health-care delivery, governments and other institutions would not be able to sustain the expenses related to the basic needs of the people that are dependent on them. So, our aim is to reduce the cost of building high-quality, efficient health-care facilities by using a modular, industrialised approach. Eventually, we hope that through reducing fixed costs and overheads, the operators will pass on the benefit to the patients.”
Aladin Niazmand, Director of TAHPI PTY Ltd that has so far built 250 hospitals in countries around the world, said: “As per capacity planning projections that we did for Dubai and Abu Dhabi in concurrence with the relevant health-care authorities in both emirates, Dubai needs at least 40 new hospitals and Abu Dhabi 30. Currently, there are 48 hospitals in the capital and 26 in Dubai. A majority of these are private hospitals. Even the large government hospitals that are 400-bed are already planning to double their size like the Latifa and Rashid hospitals. With factors like doubling of the population, mandatory insurance and medical tourism, the demand for health care has sharply risen. We have the capacity to produce 16 beds in a day and to complete a turnkey project of a 16-bed hospital we require a week. So, you can imagine the saving in time and speed this will mean, making health care more sustainable.”
Currently in the Middle East, TAHPI is building two large hospitals — the medical city in Riyadh and Bahrain — which is being done according to the conventional construction methods but will have automation and prefabrication introduced at some stage, Niazmand added.
Kottikolon added: “Going by conservative methods of construction, the cost per bed today comes to about one million dirhams. This process will not only deliver sleek and modern structures but also reduce the cost by half. This is the future of health care and will make health care affordable for all which is our aim and we intend to extend the same to education and get into building cost-effective modular schools which is our next goal.”
The first proto-type which is being made in Kozhikode, Kerala, India will be ready at the end of the year, according to Niazmand, who added that their organisation is building ten such hospitals, ranging from 16 beds to 400 beds, in India.
