Big News Day

Today two new developments were publicized in the Gulf Times which will greatly impact WCMC-Q. The research startup means that Delib will be moving in an entirely new direction. It's exciting, yet overwhelming.


Sidra clinical care facility set to open in November 2011

Published: Monday, 10 March, 2008, 01:32 AM Doha Time

Daniel Bergin ... providing world-class medical care

Staff Reporter
QATAR Foundation’s $7.9bn Sidra Medical and Research Center, intended to offer world-class clinical care, medical training and biomedical research, is set to open for patients in November 2011 upon commissioning of its first phase.
“There would be close to 400 beds, all in single rooms, in the state-of-the-art, all digital establishment focusing mainly on the health of women and children,” executive project director Daniel Bergin said yesterday.
He was giving a presentation at the opening session of the first international symposium on applied nanomedicine, a two-day event being hosted by Qatar Foundation at the Sheraton.
The vision for Sidra, part of the Education City, is to make it one of the top 20 medical centres in the world, the official said, while pointing out that it would also be the primary teaching hospital for Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q).
“The master contractor, OHL from Spain, is scheduled to hand over the clinic building towards the end of October 2010, followed by the initial handover of the main hospital building in February 2011,” Bergin said.
Sidra would also provide select medical and surgical services for men and women and function in a complementary and synergistic way to Qatar’s existing network of hospitals to avoid duplication of services.
“Sidra would function in close co-operation with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and would not have a trauma centre given the excellent facilities provided in this area by the latter,” he said.
WCMC-Q’s medical students would continue to train at HMC’s facilities even after the opening of Sidra in order to ensure exposure to a broad range of teaching cases.
In line with the plans to establish a biomedical research programme of world class standards and significance at Sidra, it is proposed to initiate ‘pre-Sidra’ research programmes at HMC prior to the opening of Sidra.
“Regionally specific diseases (such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity) are to be targeted and the national research agenda would be served through Sidra by focusing on pregnancy health, fertility, and developmental and preventive medicine,” Bergin said.
In addition, consideration is being given to the inclusion of adult medicine and surgery programmes.
“The five core facilities for clinical research comprise those pertaining to stem cell, bioinformatics, tissue management systems, genetic-genomic and proteomic, and functional and anatomic imaging,” the official said.
It is estimated that Sidra, by 2015, would handle as many as 9,300 deliveries per year, constituting 50% of the total child births in Qatar.
The major clinical service groups, catered by Sidra, would be obstetrics, gynaecology, paediatrics, medical, and surgical segments, Bergin said.
“Though there is a plan for a second phase of 170 beds, no definite timeframe has been set for the same,” he added.