The Cuban contribution to Qatar’s healthcare system is significant. The Cuban Hospital in Dukhan has gained an outstanding regional and international reputation for quality of its services and has set a new example of the cooperation between Qatar and Cuba.
The Cuban Hospital was officially opened in January 2012, as a joint project between the government of Qatar and Cuba. It functions in collaboration with the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).
Cuba has the largest number of doctors per capita in the world having 591 doctors per 100,000 people. An important difference between the healthcare system in Cuba and other countries is that medical care on the island is regarded as a fundamental right of its citizens and is part of the Cuban constitution.
The Cuban Hospital in Dukhan has more than 450 Cuban staff including 108 doctors, 283 nurses and 91 technical staff. The hospital has 75 beds and seven operating theatres.
The Cuban Hospital mainly serves people in Dukhan which has staff of Qatar Petroleum and Zekreet which has about 7,000 labourers, Shahaniya, the biggest municipality close to Dukhan and Umm Bab, a nearby small town. But, it also receives patients from other places.
Dr Angel Mario Felpe Garmendia, Medical Director of the Cuban Hospital.
“The Cuban Hospital provides all medical and surgical services in more than 25 specialties. With a rapidly expanding population of the country, the Cuban Hospital has played a very important role in receiving patients from all over Qatar to assist in relieving pressure on other HMC hospitals while new facilities have been commissioned,” Dr Angel Mario Felpe Garmendia, Medical Director of the Cuban Hospital, told The Peninsula.
“The Cuban Hospital has a national collaborative role in bariatric surgery and plastic surgery; appendectomies and patient transfers from HMC,” he added.
Dr Garmendia who has played a vital role at the Cuban Hospital came to Qatar in 2010 and was here until 2015. Then he left Qatar and returned in 2016.
The Cuban Hospital has seen a sharp rise in the patient visits over the years. The hospital recorded 85,727 outpatient visits and 6446 inpatients in 2018, compared to 259 inpatients and 17,345 outpatients it registered in 2012.
The number of surgeries performed at the hospital increased from 259 in 2012 to 3062 in 2018. It also recorded 622 births in 2018 a major jump from 9 births in 2012.
Concept of the Cuban Hospital was created by the Father Amir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani when he visited Cuba in 2002. It was built by Qatar Petroleum and its construction was completed in 2009. The soft opening was in May 2011 and was run the by Ministry of Public Health, (then Supreme Council of Health). Later it was brought under the HMC in January 2012.
