Luxury appointment – medical resources in the Middle East

A private suite with fine furnishings. A chauffer service from home or the airport. An in-house cinema and pool. One would assume that all these would be the sort of thing reserved for a top-tier hotel, but they are fast becoming staples of the luxury hospital industry as a wave of new, upmarket medical facilities begin to make an impact in the Gulf.

In most hospitals, wealthier patients demanding luxury are catered for in a specific wing kitted out with plush mod cons and a scenic view. Healthcare companies in the US and the Middle East are now taking this a step further, however, by building entire facilities designed solely for those who can afford only the very best of care – the so-called ‘luxury hospitals’.

Healthy break

Staying in hospital is often a gruelling and unpleasant experience, whereas staying in a hotel is supposed to be delightful and relaxing. A number of private healthcare organisations have seen the merit in blurring the lines between the hospital and hotel to help turn a vasectomy into a vacation.

Most luxury hospitals are indistinguishable from high-end hotels or shopping malls – a sharp contrast with the widespread poverty found in parts of the Middle East – and Advet Bhambhani Ventures Group (ABVG), the Indian company behind healthcare group Lifeline Hospitals, has announced it will be investing $84 million in a chain of luxury hospitals. The question must be asked: should these healthcare brands perhaps be dedicating their funds to more philanthropic efforts?

A boom in hospitals that offer expensive preferential healthcare only to those who can afford it is perhaps a contentious concept, but is there scope for these facilities to ultimately benefit medical care in the Middle East as a whole? The potential for market growth and a boosted reputation of the region’s healthcare services could bring elite medical tourists in their droves.

ABVG has acquired a one-acre site in Mirdif, Dubai, with the intention of constructing a 150-room ‘boutique’ hospital for wealthy patients with, notably, no shared rooms – a far cry from the crowded wards of regular institutions. It is hoped that luxury elements such as this will bring in a new wave of medical tourists to the region and cater to the discerning customers already present in the area.

The site will be developed under ABV’s new brand, Nucleus Hospitals, and situated conveniently near to Dubai International Airport, and the hospital will offer a concierge service and fine dining. As chief executive of ABVG Advet Bhambhani put it in a report on the development: “The fact that [patients] actually come for surgery or medical treatment would be an incidental part of the experience”.

The hospital is clearly aimed at the higher echelons of society, and will build on these services in other industries, where consumers can be reassured their stay will be as pain and hassle-free as possible. Bhambhani has declined to reveal an actual pricing structure but says that his hospitals will “not be above the cost of the highest-level accommodations at existing private hospitals in the UAE”. ABVG plans to open a similar facility in Mumbai, India, within the next two years, where, it is said, patients will be brought in by Rolls-Royce.

Necessity or folly?

An important question to ask is whether such seemingly superfluous comforts are irrelevant to patient health or actually positive contributors to recovery? It has been heavily argued in numerous studies that there are psychosomatic benefits of recovering in luxurious surroundings – with this research having found that patients heal faster and require less pain medication in rooms with views of nature or soothing aesthetics.

It seems also that the breadth of healthcare procedures these hospitals can provide is far from limited – or that’s the ambition, at least. Bhambhani has said that Nucleus hospitals will be tertiary care facilities, capable of providing major operations as well as cosmetic surgery and other non-emergency procedures.

Is this a case of style over substance though? Another of Bhambhani’s proposals is to open a paediatric hospital in Dubai “to be designed in the shape of a bouncy castle or a large playground”. There’s no doubt that of all the people who are reluctant to go to hospital, children are pretty near the top of the list, and Bhambhani would do well to take cues from Dubai’s Al Jalila Children’s Speciality Hospital, where child-friendly interactive screens are installed in patient rooms, with several games and cartoons, as well as ‘edutainment’-oriented programmes available for children.

There are many instances of other children’s hospitals around the world also embracing a playground-style aesthetic to try to ease their young patients’ fears and provide comfort at a stressful time, but these are usually less extreme. 

As part of the Dubai Health Authority’s (DHA) ‘Smart Hospital’ concept, the Al Jalila was the first of the DHA’s facilities to have touchscreen entertainment and ‘e-concierge’ systems implemented – a modern, child-appropriate way to hand some sense of control and comfort back to hospitalised children. The system makes it possible for patients to watch TV and videos, play games, browse the internet and order movies on demand.

The touchscreen also controls the room lights and, through the e-concierge menu option, patients are able to order meals or just a glass of water, request laundry services or extra bedding, and even call for an interpreter. They will also be able to text or video conference with nurses.

Essa Al Maidoor, director-general of the DHA, said of the initiative when it launched: “Hospital stays can be unpleasant for patients of all ages. Through the use of technology, we wanted to create a recreational, as well as educational, environment for patients.”

It seems potential patients can rest easy knowing that these luxury facilities offer a high standard of medical care that meets the necessary legislation, at least where the Medcare Hospital in Dubai is concerned – the facility carries a Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation, which is considered an international gold standard for hospitals, and the Medcare Orthopaedics and Spine Hospital (MOSH), has become one of the finest medical facilities in the Middle East.

Clever disguise

Removing the negative connotations of hospital visits by disguising the surroundings as a hotel is a clever solution but also serves to underline the fact that it kind of soothing environment comes at a price. As a thriving cosmopolitan business city, Dubai hosts a broad spectrum of visitors and inhabitants with different needs, and while Medcare Hospital can cater for a vast range of nationalities, the size of the necessary wallet remains the same.

There’s a worry among some practitioners that giving special attention to wealthy patients on luxury wards – or feeling pressured to do so by the fact that they are paying a premium – will cause neglect of other patients. A 2011 study at the Connecticut College of Emergency Physicians found that the majority of emergency departments they surveyed supported responding to VIP patients faster than regular patients. 

Another fear is that elite patients will receive erroneous and potentially harmful treatment as staff feel obliged to make patients feel they are getting their money’s worth. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Shoa L Clarke, a paediatrician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, US, wrote that he has “heard countless stories of elite patients who underwent unnecessary tests or were treated with medication unlikely to be helpful because the physician felt pressured to appease them”.

However, a likely advantage of luxury hospitals fielding large amounts of money from wealthy patients is a trickle-down effect across the medical industry. Not only are these patients footing high room and service bills, but, if they are satisfied with their stay, they may also be encouraged to make large donations.

“We are filtering people at the gate, not in the rooms,” Bhambhani has said, referring to the chain’s existing hospitals in India. “Over time, Indian consumers will realise the value of this. Even in private hospitals currently, the waiting time is ridiculous. These hospitals call themselves high-end luxury, but it’s a zoo; they have just become glorified government hospitals.”

“We want to be the pioneer in luxury healthcare,” he continued. “The aim is that, on the face of it, nothing about these hospitals would resemble an actual hospital.”

The question of whether good healthcare is a right or a privilege is an argument too diverse, complex and nuanced to do justice to here, but the advent of luxury hospitals does at least provoke a hope that ‘better’ simply means fancier – and not also safer.