MEDCARE Main Page: January 2011

"..Hyundai E&C wins $534m order from Qatar .."

Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co Ltd said on Thursday that it has won a 616.3 billion won ($534.1m) order to build a hospital in Qatar.

The country's largest builder said in a filing to the Korea Exchange that the construction period was 34 months, according to a newswire Reuters report on Thursday.

Hyundai is one of the many Korean firms that have entered into business deals in the Middle East.

Korea Investment Corp will invest $50m in an infrastructure fund run by Mubadala Development Co, the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, South Korea’s sovereign wealth fund said.

Saudi International Petrochemical Co (Sipchem) said on Wednesday its affiliate awarded South Korea's GS Engineering and Construction a contract to build a petrochemicals plant as part Sipchem's third expansion phase.

Qatar's vibrant natural gas sector will propel the country to a 20 percent growth rate next year, the International Monetary Fund said earlier this week.

Despite this runaway expansion, inflation will remain subdued at three percent, the fund said.

"..UAE spends $500m a year on diabetes 'epidemic'.."

Diabetes in the Gulf is at “epidemic proportions” with the UAE government spending $500m a year on treating the disease, the head of drug company Novo Nordisk has said.

The rate of diabetes among the population is on the rise, with an estimated 20 percent of pregnant women in the UAE contracting transitional gestational diabetes, said president and CEO Lars Rebien Sorenson.

“It’s been estimated that half a million people have diabetes and it costs the government $500mn per year,” he told Arabian Business on the sidelines of a healthcare conference.

The disease is at “epidemic proportions,” he said, with medical costs escalating.

“This is going to get worse before it gets better,” he said.

Experts put the rate of diabetes among adult expats in the UAE at 20 percent, compared to 25 percent for adult Emiratis.

“This is a public health challenge,” Dr Mohmood Fikree, undersecretary for the UAE minister of health, said at a panel discussion. “We have engaged all together for a national strategy for prevention of type 2 diabetes and the promotion of diabetes research.”

Some 530 doctors have been trained in diabetes management in the last two years, he said.

Diabetes incidence across the Gulf is among the highest worldwide, a figure experts believe is attributable in part to diet, sedentary lifestyles and a genetic predisposition to the disease.

As the region has become more westernized, diet has worsened and exercise has waned, said Sorenson.

“Economic growth is disfavorable to health. We see a change in lifestyle where people move from the countryside to the city, where they’re just walking from room to room. For people to eat differently and exercise is counterintuitive – we prefer to eat sweet stuff and do nothing,” he said.

Sorenson said it would take 30 to 50 years before the number of UAE residents being diagnosed with diabetes plateaus.

"..Kuwait MoH reveals plans for new Hospitals, Health Facilities.."

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Health (MoH) is implementing a major expansion plan that includes the construction of advanced new hospitals across the country which will provide additional 3,500-bed capacity, along with laboratories and surgical suites. This was revealed yesterday by MoH Undersecretary for Engineering Affairs Samir Al-Asfour in his inaugural address at the ministry's second conference on the plan to build advanced hospitals in Kuwait, which is currently taking place at the Movenpick Hotel in Shuwaikh's Free Trade Zone.

The ministry's expansion is being implemented as part of the overall development plan designed in compliance with His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah's wish to see Kuwait become a regional centre of excellence, explained the senior ministry official. The plan is being overseen by a top-level cabinet committee, Al-Asfour continued, adding the committee has taken into account recommendations from senior State Audit Bureau officials and is currently working on completing a report in response,which should be issued within the next few days. The report will also deal with questions over the selection of contractors to carry out these major projects and the MoH's future plans to overcome such obstacles, said the senior official.

In the address delivered on behalf of health minister Dr. Helal Al-Sayer, Al-Asfour also revealed that some contractual provisos have been amended following moves by some contractors to attempt to increase the amounts charged, explaining that this had caused delays on the work being carried out. On the work currently underway on the ministry projects, the MoH official said that the specialist committee assigned to oversee these projects is working to recruit new contractors, specifically for some projects involving the renovation of a number of facilities and others for the construction of new medical centers in the Hawally area.

Al-Asfour also underlined the importance of the private sector's role in completing the development plan projects related to the healthcare sector. He explained that the MoH plans to implement the various programs included in its plan for the next four years on a gradual basis given the long-term nature of the plan.

Al-Asfour revealed that the ministry is continuing with its plan to recruit more specialist medical teams from overseas, with three such teams already in place at the country's cancer center and main children's hospital. The MoH official also gave some details of the plans for the construction of new hospitals, adding that the ministry also plans to establish a number of specialist medical centers.

Another speaker at the inaugural event and chairman of the conference organizing committee, Nasser Al-Enezi, said that the conference is taking place alongside the ministry's ambitious expansion program, which will increase local state hospitals' capacity and improve Kuwait's medical services overall. Al-Enezi said that the conference's objective is to encourage greater private sector participation in future government projects in the healthcare sector.

Meanwhile, Nizar Mohammed, the regional manager of British construction consultancy specialists, Cyril Sweett Ltd. International, said that the conference provides a great opportunity for specialist private sector hospital construction firms to find out more about participating in the ministry's expansion program. Mohammad said that Cyril Sweett Ltd. would utilize all its expertise in executing its Kuwait-based projects in accordance with the government's five-year development plan.