Saudi German Hospital seeks to partner Nigerian medical colleges

Saudi German Hospital, a leading health care provider in the Middle East has indicated interest in partnering with medical colleges in Nigeria.

Iftakhar Asfi, the Business Planning Manager made this known in a chat with Journalists, when the representatives of the hospital hosted stakeholders in the healthcare sector at Eko Hotels, Victoria Island Lagos during the week.

He said: “Our medical colleges have working relationship with others around the globe. We are ready to collaborate with hospital colleges here as well. We don’t have any barriers to collaborating with colleges anywhere in the world. We are out to serve humanity and the community and at the same time growing in business.

“Aside from the collaboration, we also want to do what we are doing in Yemen in Nigeria. In Yemen, we have been using our resources to cater for the health needs of the people because we are out to serve local communities by meeting the health needs of the people. We are aware that many Nigerians are in dire need of health services and we are here to assist,” he said.

He added: We have been attending to many dignitaries from Nigeria over the years. We receive more than 10, 000 patients from Nigeria in Dubai only. During Hajj, we are the primary responder to emergencies. We had more than 1, 000 Nigerians admitted in our hospitals during the recent calamity that happened in the holy land. Many people who were in critical conditions were brought to us. We quickly responded to the situation because our government has listed us to handle such situations and we couldn’t afford to fail.

“The huge number of patients we receive from here showed the gravity of the health needs of the people and that is why our management has decided that we come and establish two hospitals here. When we come here the cost is definitely going to be lower. We are looking at starting off from Abuja and Lagos because these two parts of the country are well represented. But when we are fully on ground, we would spread to other parts of the country.”

The hospital, according to Iftakha started with a German concept. “Our boss, Dr Khaled Batterjee graduated from Germany and from there he came up with the idea of starting a hospital in our region. The region had shortage of good medical facility about 25 years ago. Back then, starting a hospital wasn’t an easy task but Germany was a leading nation in health care matters.

“When he came back, he discussed with his brother Engineer Sobhi and that was how we started. We started in collaboration with many German universities. To provide the German standard in Saudi Arabia, we brought the necessary things from there to Saudi Arabia.

“Our mission is to provide quality healthcare in all specialties with highest level of ethical standards and personalized care to achieve superior medical outcome and patient satisfaction,” he said.