Location: Cairo
Project Overview:
Planning for the Children's Cancer Hospital Egypt began in 1999. Dr. Ahmed Fathy Sorour initiated the acquisition of land from the Cairo governorate with former Governor Abdel Rahim Shehatta and Dr. Sorour's NGO, the Egyptian Organization of Social and Cultural Development. The land which was the former site of a slaughterhouse is situated in historic Sayeda Zeinab adjacent to the ancient aqueducts and had been slated for a park. However, both Dr. Sorour and Governor Shehatta agreed it should be used for the hospital but with the stipulation of keeping half of the 20,000 square meter parcel of land as a garden. The CCHE 57357 (Children's Cancer Hospital Egypt Foundation 57357) planning team happily agreed to this arrangement which would ensure green space for the future.
In June, 1999 HE Suzanne Mubarak performed the official ground breaking ceremony that launched the beginning of this innovative project.
The hospital was built according to the most up to date Western standards developed by an international team of experts from the United States, Sweden, Germany, Lebanon and Egypt who are highly specialized in hospital construction and known for the quality of their work. An American health planning consortium known as SLAM was chosen to undertake the pre-design phase. The SLAM team consulted with all NCI (National Cancer Institute) departments, the AFNCI (Association Of Friends Of The National Cancer Institute) Board of Directors and staff, NCI administration, community leaders, Cairo and Egyptian government representatives and patients and their families. This extensive review resulted in:
- demographic, market and demand analysis
- operational and governance guidelines
- functional programming and architectural design concepts
- financial and budgetary guidelines and estimates for the project
- staffing and equipment specifications
- patient and family focused design
Challenges & objectives of the project
It is important to articulate the hospital philosophy in a variety of statements so that staff, patients, families, public and community will have a clear idea of the hospital's strategic direction in order to meet the benchmark standards of a leader in healthcare.
The CCHE 57357 Vision, Mission, Core Values, and Ethics Statements communicate clearly the desires and views for a center of excellence. The Patient and Family Rights and Responsibilities protocols address the collaborative partnership that CHE 57357 believe is necessary to achieve the highest quality care for their patients who have unique needs because of their cancer diagnosis and because they are children and are essentially helpless.
The Lafarge role on the project
Lafarge Cement Egypt supplied the project in Old Cairo where narrow streets were difficult to navigate and dispatching at specific times was made routine to avoid creating traffic jams.
