JEDDAH, 20 October 2003 — Jeddah is to get a private medical college complex, the largest in the Middle East according to the Saudi German Hospitals Group (SGH), which is building it. Jeddah Governor Prince Mishaal ibn Majed laid the foundation stone for the project at Obhur, north Jeddah, on Saturday night.
SGH President and Chief Executive Officer Sobhi A. Batterjee said the project, on a 100,000 square meter plot of land, would have five colleges — medical, nursing, radiology, laboratory and dental. “The project will have education and training facilities initially for 1,800 students, separately for boys and girls,” Batterjee said.
He said he was confident the project would be completed on schedule due to the “excellent coordination between the private and government sectors.”
The project, one of the first in the Kingdom’s private sector, will have college buildings, housing for teaching staff and students, mosques and recreation centers. The colleges will work in cooperation with Germany’s Heidelberg University.
Batterjee said the SGH stood as one of the living symbols of strong cooperation between the Kingdom and Germany. “All of the existing SGH hospitals have the benefit of German expertise, with their specialists available for consultation and visiting hospitals in the Kingdom regularly,” he said.
