04/02/00 - The Scotsman -

From bust to boom - the fall and rise of HCI

Ken Symon - Industry Editor

A private hospital, once a financial disaster and a political embarrassment is now pumping more than £18.5 million in to the local economy, according to a report published yesterday.
The HCI International Medical Centre at Clydebank now supports 750 jobs and is the eighth largest employer in the Dunbartonshire area.

The board of the hospital owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Company, said yesterday that it has not taken up £4.4 million in public grants it was entitled to and that it had been totally privately funded in the last four years.

It emerged yesterday that two unused floors at the hospital could be used to attract inward investment and jobs to the area in related field such as biotechnology.

The report represents a sea change in the hospital's public stance from the defensive one adopted by its previous owners. The hospital said that the report's finding would challenge the "popular myths and misconceptions" about the complex, bought by the company from receivers in 1995.

The report, commissioned by Dunbartonshire Enterprise, said that HCI was making a valuable contribution to the quality of care received by patients in the West of Scotland.

HCI had been conceived in the early 1990s as a showpiece inward investment project. It was intended to contain a world call teaching hospital and provide treatment for thousands of wealthy overseas patients.

The £181 million project was built with £37 million of public funds, but patient numbers failed to match forecasts and it went into receivership in 1994, five months after it opened.

The handling of the affair by the then government was criticised later by the Commons Public Accounts Committee, which said there had been outright loss to the taxpayer of £8.4 million.
Yesterday's news conference was intended to mark a fresh start for the hospital but a couple of statements threatened a return to the old controversies.

Amjed Al Jaffery, executive director and a board member of HCI, said his company had "not been too concerned" with local perceptions, concentrating instead on international markets, but later it was said that HCI wanted to play a full part in the local community and contribute to patients care in Scotland.

"Instead of the 520 beds that was originally projected, HCI has 52, eight of them intensive care beds. Hospital executives said that if they used the total capacity of the floors they are using they would have space for 260 beds, but it was unlikely to expand to this because of the intensive treatment it provides for each patient.

Mr Al Jaffery, said it was not a "lumps and bumps" hospital but provided what he described as acute tertiary care particularly for adult and child patients with serious heart conditions or cancers.

Ian McAdam, operations director, said: "When patients come to us they are normally in a pretty serious condition and need specialist care which overseas health services cannot provide."
HCI treats patients from Abu Dhabi and the other United Arab Emirate countries, Algeria, Egypt, North African and European countries.

The hospital was competing with the cream of American private hospitals and said that the quality of medicine in Glasgow, having the four-star Beardmore Hotel on site for relatives to stay in and its sitting only ten minutes drive from Glasgow Airport were all major advantages in marketing their services around the world.

Dr McAdam said: "We do not seek out patients from the NHS but we like to help out if we are able to." He also admitted that nursing staff and others trained by the NHS are recruited by the hospital but said that HCI give its own training in highly specialist areas.

Yesterday's report, prepared by Ekos economic consultants, said that HCI now generates more than 79 per cent of its income by providing treatment to overseas patients who would otherwise not visit Scotland for medical care. "HCI's business has been growing and is expected to continue to grow, generating even greater economic benefit to Scotland", said the report.