Last week saw the laying of the foundation stone for the Magdi Yacoub heart centre in the southern city of New Aswan. The event called for a celebration in which Minister of Housing, Mustafa Madbouli; Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali; Sir Magdi Yacoub, and a number of staff members at his heart centre in Aswan participated.
Dr Madbouli expressed his happiness at launching the project which, he said, would serve Egypt and the entire region. He promised the State’s full support of the project.
Last November, the New Urban Communities Authority allocated 31.65 feddans of land in Aswan for the Magdi Yacoub Foundation (MYF) to establish an international centre for heart disease and research. One feddan is equal to 4200 sq.m.
Founded in 2009 by renowned Egyptian-born cardiologist and heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yaacoub, the MYF is an Egyptian NGO that offers top-class medical services to heart patients of all ages in Egypt and the region.
Sir Magdi talked about the project, calling for the support of Egyptians and Arabs in order to open the new heart centre next September, at the cost of USD350 million. He said the centre was an extension to the heart hospital founded eight years ago in Aswan by the MYF to treat heart cases free of charge. The new centre, he said, will have the capacity to receive 80,000 patients a year in its outpatient clinics, and to conduct surgery on some 12,000 a year. This is three times the capacity of the present hospital, he said, stressing that there is a need to focus on children and newborns who suffer heart problems.
Our first and foremost aim, Sir Magdi insisted, is the treatment of heart patients. But another significant purpose of the new centre, he said, is to produce a new generation of scientists, doctors, nurses, and medical technicians of world-class professional standard. This, he said, would be achieved through the new centre which will include state-of-the-art research and training facilities.
According to Magdi Ishaq, vice chairman of the board of trustees and CEO of the MYF, the new centre’s location was chosen to be near Awan Airport in order to be accessible to patients. He said the centre will start with some 1,200 doctors, researchers, and nurses; and will include 300 beds, 120 among them for intensive care cases, as well as five operating theatres and five cardiac catheter theatres. There will also be training and innovation centres, and international medical conference facilities. The new centre, Mr Ishaq said, will be eco-friendly and will use renewable energy sources.
Watani International
13 May 2018