08/12/2022
08/12/2022
Years ago, a Kuwaiti company sought to carry out a project to build and manage a global hospital for the treatment of cancer patients locally, and to benefit from the funds spent abroad, and it contracted with the famous French hospital Gustave Roussy, which specializes in treating cancer, to be a partner.
The idea was clever and profitable. The project was to be fully funded with offset funds. Also, the land was to be offered free by the state, and the remunerative income to be from the money allocated for treatment abroad, which currently amounts to approximately 400 million dinars.
The project obtained the initial approvals, but it became clear, after a long debate that the offset conditions were not applicable to it.
The land area, which the project owners applied to obtain from the state, for free, far exceeded 6,000 square meters which had previously been allocated for similar projects, however the investing party, who in fact did not intend to invest anything other than the idea, and three hundred thousand dinars that he allocated for the project, insisted on his requests, increased the delay in final approvals, and the difficulty of meeting his requests, and this prompted them to search for companies but Kuwaiti bureaucracy was stronger.
Then it became clear to the French side that they can, through the Investment Promotion Authority law, enter the Kuwaiti market, invest and work directly without the need for an agent or partner and since the goal of the French lies mainly in transferring their expertise in the field of cancer treatment to another country, government parties offered them to manage the current cancer hospitals in their own way, to save the state tens of millions of public money, which the project owners requested from the offset.
It was also to eliminate the need to provide lands with huge areas for a new hospital project, and most important of all, make the most of the existing cancer hospital buildings, equipment, and expertise, which would turn into vacant buildings if a new cancer hospital, was built with global management.
Although the idea was attractive to the French side, since they are not primarily interested in obtaining the loan, the offer and the land, and they only care about transferring their expertise to another party in exchange for a good annual amount, the contract with the Kuwaiti party prevented them from accepting the logical government offer; so they decided with the advent of a new board of directors, to withdraw from the entire project, because acceptance would mean paying large compensations to the local partner for violating the terms of the contract, while withdrawing would not cost them anything, and patients from Kuwait would continue to receive their treatment in France.
From all of this, it becomes clear that the massive wave of anger that swept public opinion, and the deputies’ threats to question the government for its negligence, after the Gustave Roussy hospital’s decision to withdraw, and the attempt by almost all parties to place full responsibility on the government, was not all logical or acceptable, nor was it to be fair to everyone who tweeted, wrote, or attacked the government for its negligence and failure, the guilt, this time at least, was not entirely the government’s fault.
One last note: The secret of the success of the Gustave Roussy Hospital in Paris lies in the fact that it is an integrated project in its equipment, doctors, accumulated experience, nursing staff, and other secrets of its superiority, all of which are difficult to transfer to any hospital in Kuwait.
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By Ahmad alsarraf