Starcare opens medical centre in Al Khuwair

Starcare First Medical Centre, Al Khuwair is one of the largest outpatient medical centres in Oman offering 15 speciality care services and equipped with digital mammography system, bone densitometer, 4D ultrasound scanning, in house pharmacy, laboratory

MUSCAT: Oman division of Starcare Health Systems UK announced the opening of its medical centre in Al Khuwair, Muscat.

Starcare bought 100 per cent stake in First Medical Centre located prominently on the main highway in Al Khuwair (earlier known as Welcare Diagnostic and Treatment Centre) for making high quality health care affordable and accessible to people living in Al Khuwair, Qurum and Ghubra region. Starcare UK currently operates its highly successful JCI accredited hospital located in Mawelah, Seeb.

With an area of more than 8,000sq. ft, the medical centre in Al Khuwair is one of the largest outpatient medical centres in Oman offering 15 speciality care services and equipped with digital mammography system, bone densitometer, 4D ultrasound scanning, in house pharmacy, laboratory and visa medical services. When fully expanded, Starcare First Medical Centre will have round the clock urgent care service seven days a week, which will be a unique, easily accessible emergency care service for the neighbourhood. “Our aim is to reach out to as many communities as possible in their neighbourhood itself so that people get more personalised care of high standards without having to drive long distances. This is the first of a number of such centres we plan to open in the coming months,” said Dr Sadik Kodakat, chairman of Starcare Group.

Starcare First Medical Centre, Al Khuwair offers family medicine, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, ENT, internal medicine, general surgery, orthopaedics, cardiology, endocrinology, dentistry, orthodontics, maxillofacial surgery and radiology among its specialities. “A number of popular in-house doctors and visiting consultants supported by a keen nursing and customer care team is our strength. I am very happy that ever since Starcare took over the management, we are seeing a lot of interest from new patients and outside doctors. Valet parking service has been introduced to ease the parking vows common in Al Khuwair,” said Dr Baushar, Medical director of the centre.

Quality of service

“Ever since our first hospital made its mark in the country, we have been receiving lot of enquiries from other health care operators, investor and governmental entities to associate with us. We are also being approached for management take over and we have been positive to this if we can ensure that quality of service delivered can be of what is expected from Starcare. Our primary expansion plan in Oman is through a mix of acquisitions and new projects though, said K. Jayan, director of Corporate Development at Starcare Health Systems.

Starcare Medical Centre projects in Azaiba and Al Amerat and the hospital project in Buraimi are due to open this year itself. Starcare also plans to set up medical centres in Al Khoud and Qurum and hospital projects in Duqm and Al Amerat soon after. This aggressive growth plan of Starcare will be in association with various local partner individuals, companies and government entities. “We will be using a variety of business partnership models to achieve this. The only consistent feature of our partnership models are that the quality of service delivered to the public is assured by Starcare. All other equations can be variable,” Dr Sadik spoke of Starcare strategy when asked about the reason of its popularity and success within a short time frame.

Starcare is also awaiting ministry approval for its largest private hospital plan in Muscat, a 250-bed tertiary care hospital which will receive referrals from other medical centres and hospitals from Oman and neighbouring countries. The project is aimed to stop the need to frequently travel out of the country for complex medical treatment. “Our first hospital in Seeb is already handling complex medical and surgical cases. We intend to build on this experience and address current gaps in speciality care like cancer care centre, cardiac surgery and possibly organ transplantation,” added Jayan.