Maputo private hospital

Maputo Private Hospital is Mozambique's first fully enabled private hospital. It cost 16 million US dollars to complete. It is scheduled for completion in July 2008.

Mozambique's first private hospital
There are plenty of private clinics in the Mozambican capital, but this is the first full scale private hospital in Mozambique. Initially the hospital has 100 beds, but will expand to 120 and later, depending on demand, to 220.

The partners in the Maputo Private Hospital (MPH) are the South African company Lenmed Health, with 60 per cent of the capital, and the Mozambican group Invalco, with 40 per cent.

Background
The major problem in Mozambique is the lack of adequate facilitys. For many years, health, especially major operations were impossible to perform. As such millions of dollars leave the country annually as health care is sought outside of mozambican borders, primarily South Africa. As such major health providers, based in South Africa, had previously neglected Mozambique as patients travelled to them. This tragic imbalance has gone on and lead to tens of thousands of preventable deaths.

The hospital was planned since 2003, and has the go-ahead from the Mozambican government. It is now awaiting planning permission from the Maputo City Council, but once that is granted, the hospital can be operational in 18 months.

Unlike the private clinics, the hospital offers a full service, and would not have to depend on the public health service for certain examinations or analyses.

The new hospital offers surgical, orthopedic, obstetric, paediatric and gynaecological services. It will have its own maternity ward, intensive care unit, pharmacy and even a morgue.

By offering a service of international quality, the MPH will deter patients from seeking treatment abroad (mostly in South Africa), which drains the country of millions of dollars in foreign exchange every year.

In future a medical faculty, or a nursing school will be appended, in order to assist the government in the training of human resources.

MPH will recruit staff locally and abroad - but, unlike the private clinics, it will demand that its staff are full time. She warned that it will not be possible for a doctor to work partly in the national health service, and partly in the MPH.

According to reports in the South African press, funding is being procured from Scandinavian banks, and from South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation, while General Electric is to provide the equipment and consultancy services.

Lenmed Health
The South African partner, Lennmed Health, started life as the Lenmed clinic in the Johannesburg suburb of Lenasia in 1980, but has expanded to become one of South Africa's major private health providers, owning five hospitals.