South Korea’s Samsung Company has signed an agreement with Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences to help build a 1000-bed mega-hospital in Mahforujak village in the northern Mazandaran Province, said Chancellor Qasem Jan Babaei.
The MoU was signed on the sidelines of the first conference on ‘Foreign Investment in Healthcare System’ which was held on May 14-15 at Espinas Hotel in Tehran, IRNA reported.
Foreign companies from South Korea, Italy, Turkey and Japan, among others at the conference, expressed interest to cooperate with Iran in hospital construction projects.
“Some project contracts were signed between foreign and domestic investors,” he said.
Explaining the joint project, Jan Babaei said as per the memorandum of understanding, the company representatives will visit this week the 15-hectare site identified for the project by the university, following which preparatory measures will be taken. Operations for the project construction will start 2-3 months later and it is projected to be completed in 3 years.
Mahforujak is in the central Sari County. “We also offered another piece of land near the Farahabad highway; however Samsung selected Mahforujak due to its convenient location and easy access.”
The total cost has not been estimated yet “but each specialized bed will cost over $200,000.”
According to the MoU, the Iranian university will pay 15% of the total project cost and the remaining will be funded by the Korean company.
“The money invested as well as the interest on it will be paid back to the company through a 10-year installment plan,” Jan Babaei said.
The hospital will be fully managed by the Health Ministry and Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, and therefore the cost of healthcare services for patients will correspond with the medical tariffs fixed at state-run hospitals, which is four times cheaper than private health services.
Currently, 15 hospitals are under construction in the province under the 2014 Health Reform Plan and after completion, 1,979 hospital-beds will be added to the existing capacity of the provincial healthcare system, he added.
Health System Capacity
Earlier, on the eve of the conference, Davoud Danesh Jafari, senior advisor to the health minister said that there are 95,000 hospital beds in the country or 1.7 beds per 100,000 people. In order to reach neighboring Turkey’s standard which is 2.8 hospital-beds per 100,000 people, “we need to add 100,000 beds.”
Given the deficits in state funding, the maximum number of hospital-beds the government can annually add is only 1,600, and therefore reaching the global standard “will take at least 60 years if we don’t get help from the domestic private sector and foreign investors.”
The Health Ministry’s budget for this fiscal year that started in March is 90,000 billion rials ($2.6 billion).
