The new Trauma and Emergency Center, at Hamad General Hospital under Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and the largest such facility in the Middle East, provides care for about 1,500 emergency cases a day.

The Emergency Department is the first department of HMC which has been corporatised all across the HMC hospitals network.

“In all the hospitals under HMC, the Emergency Department is working as one unit, providing same level of care for all the patients. The physicians and other officials will be rotated to all the emergency centres on a regular basis,” disclosed Dr Aftab Mohamed Azad, deputy chairman, Corporate Emergency Department during a press conference on Sunday.

“This is the biggest emergency department in the region. We have 256 beds including isolation rooms and rooms for other types of treatment. All of them are single rooms and provide greater privacy for patients. We are taking care of all emergency services and give critical care as well as care for minor injuries and incidents,” explained Enaam Saleh MA al-Naemi, assistant executive director of nursing, Accidents and Emergency, HMC.

Both the officials expressed their gratitude to His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and HE the Minister of Public Health Dr Hanan Mohamed al-Kuwari for their able leadership and support in providing such a large facility for emergency care.

Dr Azad noted that several minor cases are being referred to the emergency centres and this can be avoided. “We treat everyone who comes to the emergency centres. But several minor cases which can be looked after at the primary health care centres are reported to the emergency centres. Most critical cases are referred as category one and the most minor cases are in the category of four and five. Category four and five should be treated at primary health centres and if there is any real emergency out of them, they should be reported to the emergency centres,” he explained.

Al-Naemi said that the new centre has expanded many facilities and services. “In the radiation area, now there are seven X-ray rooms, three CT scan facilities, one MRI unit and four ultrasound facilities. This has helped us in reducing the waiting time to get all the radiation imaging done. There are similar expansion in other areas too,” she described.

The official also told that the old Emergency Department at the hospital will support the new Trauma and Emergency Center by providing additional capacity as needed, specifically for ‘see and treat’ services and waiting areas.

“There is a ramp to the first floor of the centre for the ambulance to enter. The patients brought by air ambulance will be collected from the multistory parking building near the centre and transported to the emergency department by the ambulance,” added al-Naemi.

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