Hill International, a global leader in managing construction risk, said it has secured a contract from Cairo University to provide project management services for the Kasr Al Ainy Hospitals Development project located in the Egyptian capital.

Under the contract, Hill International will offer project management services during the design, procurement, and execution phases of the project.

The Kasr Al-Ainy Hospital, located in downtown Cairo in the University’s Faculty of Medicine campus, currently has 3,200 beds.

The detailed of the project will include the renovation of all the existing Kasr Al-Ainy hospital buildings and facilities. It will also involve the construction of any additional facility buildings if the need arises.

On the contract win, Hill Senior VP (North Africa) Waleed Abdel Fattah said: “Kasr Al Ainy is a landmark facility that traces its roots back to 1827. This legacy of healing continues today, and this project will enable the hospital’s professionals to better serve their patients through dramatically improved efficiencies and expanded, customized facilities.”

“Our team will bring Hill’s healthcare best practices from the region and around the world to help ensure the vision for Kasr Al-Ainy is realized safely, on time, and within budget,” he added.

Hill CEO Raouf Ghali dubbed Kasr Al Ainy as the latest evidence of the strength of healthcare in Egypt specifically and of Egyptian economy in general.

“Our company continues to see mega-projects in healthcare and other sectors break ground after long periods of negotiation and coordination among various stakeholders. I expect similar progress on other healthcare projects across Mena region to continue for the foreseeable future,” he stated.

Vantage Capital, Africa’s largest mezzanine fund manager, announced today that it has made a $28 million equity investment to acquire a significant minority shareholding in the Cliniques Internationales du Maroc Group (“CIM Santé Group”). The business was founded in 1994 by Professor Assad Chaara, an internationally renowned cardiologist who pioneered coronary angiography and catheterization in Morocco, and the company has since grown into one of Morocco’s leading healthcare groups.

CIM Santé Group also owns radiology centres, medical laboratories and laundry service companies in Marrakech and Tangier.

This transaction represents Vantage Capital’s 30th transaction across three generations of mezzanine funds with its portfolio of investments spread across ten countries in Africa.

In Morocco, CIM Santé Group is Vantage’s second investment in Morocco after its investment in Equity Invest, an IT group last year, and it’s the third investment in Francophone Africa.

Following the investment, Vantage Capital now becomes a minority with “significant shareholding,” in the Cliniques Internationales du Maroc Group (“CIM Santé Group”), the fund manager said in a statement.

The hospital which will be the group’s largest establishment to date will have 200 bed and 10 theatres, tripling the groups bed capacity and more than doubling the theatres.

Luc Albinski, Managing Partner at Vantage Capital, noted that “Vantage is proud to have concluded its largest growth-capital investment to date. It is always pleasing when our funds are applied towards building new, leading-edge infrastructure in Africa whether it takes the form of power plants, fibre networks or hospitals. But given the impact that world-class health care can have on patients and on their families, in many cases saving lives that would prematurely succumb to heart disease and other medical conditions, this investment, at this time, with the COVID epidemic raging, is a source of great joy and pride for the Vantage team.”

Driss Benabdeslam, Associate Partner at Vantage Capital, added, “We are proud to partner with the highly-regarded Chaara family and contribute with our funds and our ideas to the further growth of the Group. We are confident that in a few years’ time, CIM Santé Group will be one of the biggest private multi-disciplinary healthcare groups in Morocco.”

The Government of Egypt has secured around US$500 million from several development partners and multilateral institutions to enhance the capacity of the country’s health sector, Minister of International Cooperation, Rania Al Mashat has revealed.

Al Mashat noted that the ministry has been keen on strengthening international collaboration to support the country’s national efforts and fight the pandemic, both in short term for crisis response and in long-term to ensure an inclusive and sustainable recovery.

Al-Mashat further revealed that the funds were dedicated towards the provision of protective equipment, supplies for medical teams and isolation hospitals, and also for strengthening the capacity of the Egyptian Red Crescent.

Some of the funds would also be used in training medical personnel as well as improving public awareness of the crisis, Al-Mashat revealed.

Al Mashat stated that the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a fund of $400 million to be implemented in six Egyptian governorates.

The funds will be used to strengthen UHIS-related governance and institutions and provide temporary financial protection against high out of pocket health expenditures for vulnerable populations.

She also signed an agreement with the World Bank Group worth $50 million as part of the Emergency Response Project to combat the Covid-19 Pandemic for the Ministry of Health and Population.
The Ministry also succeeded in reallocating $7.9 million to combat the COVID-19 within the framework of a major agreement signed with the World Bank worth 530 million euros to develop the health sector in Egypt.

On the same note, Al-Mashat amended an agreement with the French Development Agency for the primary health care project with an amount of $17 million, to purchase medical and protective equipment.

According to Al-Mashat, Egypt also received a number of medical supplies donation from the United States, China, and India.

The Country also received a number of grants from various development partners including Korea (US$400,000), Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, (US$3.2 million), Canada (US$500,000), AfDB (US$500,00) and UNICEF (7.74 million).

The Ministry of International Cooperation also launched the “Kamama” initiative, which was a successful model for cooperation among different stakeholders in society.
It aimed to both empower and protect women in Upper Egypt through providing them with job opportunities in the production of masks.

Al Mashat revealed that currently, the ministry is working to finalize the procedures for obtaining a grant from the Japanese government, amounting $9.3 million.

South African e-health startup Healthcent, which is behind the Signapps messaging platform, has won a contract with the United Kingdom’s National Health Services (NHS) to provide its software as a service (SaaS) communication platform for the management of clinical communication to NHS Trusts.

NHS Trusts will be able to procure Signapps’ services through a framework agreement which has a list value of GBP3 million (US$4 million) and will run for a period of two years with a potential extension for 12 months.

“The contract with the NHS is a major coup for us, as a South African company, proving that our product engineering teams can create products to compete with the very best internationally,” said Andrew Davies, chief executive officer (CEO) of Signapps.

He said because most of the developments involved in fulfilling the NHS contract will be done in South Africa, the contract will provide work opportunities for those with software engineering and development skills.

A tender published on June 19 by the UK government said the COVID-19 pandemic had “accelerated the need to urgently deliver on Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s long-standing plan to phase out pagers by the end of 2021”.

The target date has been brought forward significantly because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, with the tender awarded to Signapps six weeks after being published.

Since its launch in 2017, the messaging platform has built a strong local track record, having been established in numerous areas, including the Chris Hani Baragwanath Paediatric Burns Unit, stroke units within the Life Hospital group, and sub-acute care.

Having recently, on a pro-bono basis, worked within state hospitals to keep healthcare workers safe, it has now secured a significant international deal with the NHS.

“There was an excellent fit between the requirements of the NHS tender and the Signapps messaging platform, including GDPR compliant platform features and points of integration to NHS active directory and Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems. Said features and integrations enable staff to share clinical information quickly and securely with the minimum of friction,” Davies said.

“The award shows that our platform, already proven to be effective in South Africa, can stand up to international scrutiny and be selected for use in one of the world’s biggest national health systems. I am proud of everyone, both inside and outside our company, who has played a role in developing Signapps to this point.”

Healthcare providers use Signapps to confidentially communicate and share clinical updates on patients, enabling appropriate responses by practitioners in real-time as well as facilitating more generalised communication relating to logistical and administrative matters between teams.

The advantage of Signapps, particularly in the treatment of patients with COVID-19, is that only essential workers need to be physically present with the patient, allowing other members of the care team to collaborate in real time remotely.