Muscat Private Hospital, built and equipped by an Austrian firm at an estimated cost of RO18 million ($47 million), was set for official opening on September 1.

The 60-bed hospital is located in a 19,000 sq m complex on the main road in the Bausher area of the capital and will have the first assisted-conception unit in Oman, boasting a modern delivery unit with the first Roma Wheel (a delivery chair with controlled electronic currents) in the Middle East and an automated biopsy operating theatre, among other facilities.

The major focus of the hospital, the brainchild of Omani surgeon Dr Mohammed Ali Jaffer, is towards women and children although it will be offering general medicine, surgery and a few other specialities that are either scarcely available or not available at all in Oman.

Consultancy and running of the hospital have been entrusted to the British management group Allied Medical. A sister concern of Allied Medical has invested RO1.2 million in the project. The paid-up capital is RO6 million with Saudi Medicare having a share of 46.5 per cent.