MILAN (ITALPRESS/MNA) – A new hospital that will be managed by the San Donato Group was inaugurated in Najaf, Iraq, in the presence Prime Minister Mohammed Shià Al-Sudani, the Iraqi Minister of Health, Saleh Al-Hasnawi and the Italian Ambassador to Iraq, Maurizio Gregant. The management of the Al-Najaf Al- Ashraf Teaching Hospital was entrusted to the main Italian healthcare group San Donato (GSD), for the next two years by the Iraqi government.
Presiding the official inauguration, Kamel Ghribi, Vice President of the San Donato Group and President of GKSD Investment Holding, accompanied by the Vice President of the Italian Senate Licia Ronzulli and the EU Special Representative for the Gulf region, Luigi Di Maio.
?GSD and GKSD won the contract about a year ago, worth 80 million dollars. It involves the organisational, structural, technological and administrative management of the hospital.
?The Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Teaching Hospital, is considered one of the most important university hospitals in the city of Najaf, which is about 160 km from the capital Baghdad, with approximately one million two hundred thousand inhabitants, and considered one of the holiest city for the Shia Islam.
The hospital, built by the Germans between 2009 and 2014, has remained underused to date from a clinical and healthcare point of view, thus leading to a rapid deterioration of the infrastructure, the fire safety system and in general of the present technology, accompanied by a lack of operating procedures.
Of the 492 beds, only 60 have actually been used to date. The hospital also has 16 operating theatres, 44 intensive care units, approximately 3,000 medical and administrative employees, now supported by the GSD team, made up of 50 professionals including technicians, administrators and doctors.
?The new GSD management has already allowed, among other things, the return of several specialists who fled the country during the war years ago and returned to make an effective contribution to the restart of the healthcare system in Iraq.
Healthcare is, in fact, one of the priorities of the current government, led by Mohammed Shià Al-Sudani, with the aim of promoting and improving the quality of care for Iraqi citizens, an urgent need to which the strategic partnership between the Iraqi government Iraq, GSD and GKSD aims to cope with renewed commitment.
In particular, the start of the clinical and technological training provided by the GSD to the medical and managerial staff of the hospital, together with the transfer of the skills and technical knowledge of GKSD Engineering & Construction, used for the reconstruction of the hospital structure, brought Iraq closer to Italy, paving the way for future collaborations also in other industrial fields.
“Our people deserve the best care. We may be late in other areas, but we cannot be late in health,” said the Iraqi Prime Minister. The government’s strategic plan for the country’s healthcare also includes the construction of 16 new hospitals, specialized centers for the treatment of the most serious and widespread pathologies. “Our citizens will no longer be forced to go abroad for treatment and will be direct witnesses of an epochal change in the level of quality of care”, concluded the Iraqi Prime Minister, while giving special thanks to the GSD and its Vice President Kamel Ghribi, for having accepted a challenge that he himself considered to be very complex.
Towards the end of the inauguration, Kamel Ghribi, President of GKSD and Vice President of the San Donato Group, declared: “Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Teaching Hospital is a unique demonstration of how healthcare can break down barriers, create values and build bridges between nations. Working tirelessly behind the scenes, we have overcome obstacles to embrace the bold vision of Prime Minister Mohammed Shià Al-Sudani, demonstrating that, with perseverance and a strong unity, anything is possible.”
– Photo: San Donato Group press office –
(ITALPRESS).
