At last the much-publicized, long-awaited multibillion-dollar medical city in Riyadh has seen the light. The opening last week of the project, conceived during the oil boom, was welcomed by all. This, however, should not prevent us from admitting that the medical city proved to be one of the most ill-planned mega-projects ever undertaken by the country.
The idea of building an ultramodern medical city in the capital was floated during the boom years when there were funds enough for everything. When construction began, plenty of money was available and the planners assumed the flow of cash would never stop and boom would last forever. It was an assumption that lacked any scientific thought and failed to consider future possibilities correctly.
What happened was that the boom came to an end without the project’s being completed. The state budget failed to allocate the funds needed to complete it, let alone provide sufficient money to ensure integrated services and continued maintenance. What was planned as a colossal medical city ended up being a liability on the state budget without immediate benefits to anyone.
What the planners also failed to realize was that medicine is an ever-developing and expanding field with major changes taking place constantly, whether in diagnosis or treatment or techniques or tools. What is hailed today as a breakthrough might be just ordinary history within a year or two. Think of the electronics industry where almost every day brings something new. With new medical tools developed every day, hospitals and labs are being emptied of old equipment in favor of new. This requires money and plenty of it. In the case of the Riyadh medical city, it was not possible to get the funds needed to sustain such a huge project.
The final outcome is that it will not be able to exist as a modern hospital in the strict sense of the word. What was originally planned as an advanced medical center will now be confined to treating conventional cases using conventional methods. In short, it is a center of the 20th century rather than the 21st. There is a great difference in every way between a hospital rooted in the last century and one on the cutting edge of the new.
Arab News From the Local Press 22 June 2003
