Invitations to bid for nine Omani hospitals with up to 300 beds each are due to be issued in the next few weeks, undersecretary for finance and administration in the Ministry of Health Darwish bin Saif bin Said Al-Maharbi told the MEED Oman Projects Forum 2013 on 29 October .

“As I speak, we have about 47 major projects under implementation,” he said.

Al-Maharbi said that a big increase in health projects and services will be needed to meet the needs of Oman’s population, which is growing by about 54,000 people a year.

“We shall need 22,780 doctors in 2050 compared with 7,095 in 2012,” Al-Maharbi said.

The largest new project calls for the construction of a new hospital in Salalah, which will be Oman’s biggest.

Al-Maharbi said studies are continuing into plans to develop The Medical City in Muscat. It has been allocated 5 million square metres of land near Sultan Qaboos University west of Muscat. The project calls for five hospitals, a rehabilitation centre, a central laboratory and imaging building, an education and research centre and a college of nursing and allied health sciences.

“Medical City will change the healthcare landscape in Oman,” Al-Maharbi said. The project will also have residential, retail and recreational facilities.

In August, Oman’s Ministry of Health tendered for consultancy work at five new hospital projects in the country. Spilt across two contracts, the first was for architectural design concept and consultancy engineering services for a 300-bed general hospital in Suwaiq.The second covered design and consultancy engineering services for four hospitals in, Al-Najat, Sumail, Al-Falah, and Khasab.