NBB to finance new hospital construction

MANAMA: The construction of Bahrain’s first eco-friendly hospital, set to open in 2022, will be financed by the National Bank of Bahrain (NBB).

The King Hamad American Mission Hospital, located in A’Ali, will be spread across 57,000 square metres, and will draw up to 50 per cent of its electricity requirements from around 3,000 solar panels.

“We are pleased to provide the financing for construction of the upcoming state-of-the-art King Hamad American Mission Hospital which includes eco-friendly financing to install solar panels,” NBB head of commercial and small-medium enterprises Arif Janahi explained.

“At NBB, we remain steadfast in our support of strategic sectors within the kingdom and are committed to working hand-in-hand with the healthcare sector to bring sustainable projects of this scale and magnitude to life.”

As the GDN previously reported, the futuristic medical facility will include a maternity and children’s block, single-room intensive care units, an imaging centre, infertility centre, 300-seat auditorium for meetings and conferences, a special needs children’s development assessment and treatment centre and 400 parking slots.

The solar panels powering the hospital will be fully-equipped with a net metering system and will be used to meet a significant portion of the facility’s power requirements.

“With NBB’s support, we are looking to install around 3,000 solar panels on the hospital’s roof to generate a sufficient amount of power that aims to reduce our electrical bills by up to 50pc,” noted AMH corporate chief executive Dr George Cheriyan.

“As the first eco-friendly private hospital, we hope that this will become the norm amongst other healthcare facilities and hospitals across the kingdom.”

NBB executives also noted that financing the project comes as part of the bank’s drive to promote sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG)-centric financing resulting in creating an impact within the local community, in line with Bahrain Economic Vision 2030.

“The King Hamad AMH project is at the highest levels of sustainability as it touches three key ESG pillars, namely, healthcare, and education, through the embedded education and training centre, and renewable energy, through the solar sub-project,” added NBB head of structured finance and transaction banking Zied Jalali.

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