I am currently working as a locum Senior Consultant in Burns Care in Al Wakra Hospital in Qatar. Qatar is 10 times the size of Hong Kong and has an indigenous population of a few hundred thousand but an expatriate population of over one and half million. Qatar sits on the third largest reserve of natural gas in the world and the 13th largest oil reserves. This wealth is fuelling the country as it rockets into the 21st century. Construction is everywhere and of all types of infrastructure; roads, schools, museums, residential and business complexes, industrial complexes, sports and leisure facilities and hospitals. Al Wakra is a new hospital and I am enthralled by the aesthetics of the design which are reflected in a few pictures I have captured. We have the form but what gives the concept of ‘function’ to a hospital? Inevitably this has to come through a collage of people and processes, products and policies, professionalism and patients. Whilst reflecting on this with some visiting doctors from America it became quite apparent how much of their clinical practice is driven by commercial interests. A relationship between healthcare and industry obviously exists and it can be mutually beneficial if it is honest, open and transparent. But there will always be the potential for the ‘hard sell’ and on this note we must do what we can to guide our healthcare planners and hospital administrators to spend money wisely and invest appropriately. A brand new hospital in a wealthy country will be number one target for purveyers of ‘state of the art’ equipment or systems that may be wonderful but equally may be of little real clinical relevance; a solo practitioner setting up their first private clinic can equally be regarded as a partner or a ‘mark’.
Form and function
