King Fahad Medical City is one of the largest medical complexes in the world

Dr. Mushabbab Al Asiri, Executive Director of Medical Affairs of King Fahad Medical City talks about the major achievements of the hospital and its major milestones.

First of all can you tell us about some of the major achievements of the hospital and its major milestones?

King Fahad Medical City is one of the largest medical complexes in the world. Most of it began a long time ago in the ‘70s when the idea was first formulated and then the building commenced in 1983. It became operational in 2003 and now after a decade of operation it has become one of the benchmarks in the Middle East and we have the vision to become an international benchmark.

The idea behind this medical city is to serve specialised services in tertiary care and quaternary care mainly in neuroscience, cancer and cardiology. In addition, King Fahad Medical City boasts rehabilitation services, specialised women´s care, a hospital specialised in children’s complex medical problems and specialised inter-medicine and surgery unit. The city has around 8,000 staff among caregivers and supportive staff.

After this decade of operations, we have become a point-of-attraction for specialised, quality medical care services. Our achievements make up a long list, but the major achievement is that we provide quality clinical care that has been logged as the benchmark in Saudi Arabia.

We started receiving patients from outside of Saudi Arabia looking for treatment in our institution. Now more than half of our human capital is local. They are Saudis who have been trained and groomed over time to take care of our patients. We have scholars that go to Europe and North America and who come back with new ideas and new projects.

For example, the plan is to set up a genomic lab in Saudi Arabia. Further facilities are under construction, such as the neuroscience centre and the oncology centre and the hospital will be the first to house proton facility in the Middle East. These are the three new projects under construction and the plan is to build a research centre.

Our team did the most complex surgery for an obese patient who was the world record holder for obesity; the patient weighed 600+ kilos. He came to the hospital crippled, he could not move and he left KFMC three weeks ago walking for the first time in a long time. We added quality to this person’s life. He lost more than 400 kilos and he is now starting to mobilise and come back to life.

This kind of achievement is just for one person, but it is a life; we have added a life to a person who was crippled and that is in addition to so many other patients that are being treated for cancer, stroke, heart attacks etc. All of them have received quality care and have left KFMC smiling and come back as our routine patients.

One of the achievements that I look most proudly upon is that KFMC has become a factory for highly qualified professional people. We have graduated probably up to 50% of the leaders in healthcare in Saudi Arabia. They came here as staff and were groomed and then went outside of KFMC as executive directors and leaders. Either in private or government hospitals. This for us is an achievement: that we provide these kinds of professionals that transform the healthcare environment in Saudi Arabia.