From June 2019 to the end of June 2021, 52,524 infants were born at Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Women’s Wellness and Research Center (WWRC), which has been recognised as a centre of excellence. WWRC sees an average of 6,500 emergency department visits, 17,000 outpatient visits, and 1,900 inpatient admissions every month, according to its website.
There is a family-centred approach to caring for women and newborns in Qatar, according to the WWRC. Their offerings include prenatal, perinatal, and neonatal care.
Doctor Hilal Al Rifai, interim chief executive and medical director at WWRC, said services have been continually expanded and upgraded to meet the growing needs of women and newborns across a broad spectrum of specialisations and subspecialties.
Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP), the world’s biggest society for Obstetric Anesthesia, recently recognised WWRC as a Center of Excellence.
“The award of this society is significant in the sense that we are following the standard and benchmark set by that society, means that we are following high standards to the extent we are permitted to use their logo,” Dr Al Rifai said.
“This is a very prestigious international award which ranks the service of WWRC in this field at the highest world standards of quality and safety.  This indicates the great support by the leadership of Qatar and H E the Minister of Public Health who raised the ambition bar and motivated the staff to achieve the highest standards of patients’ care that Qatar deserves,” said Dr Al Rifai.
WWRC has a total of 1,922 employees, including 207 physicians, 1,339 nurses and midwives, 101 allied health professionals, and 275 non-medical workers.
OBGYN services offer 25 subspecialties, including an early pregnancy evaluation section, a feto-maternal care unit, prenatal genetic counselling, and a mental assessment clinic.
There is a level 3 NICU, a TBU and TCNU at the WWRC. In neonatology/pediatric clinics, services include paediatric cardiology, neurodevelopment clinic, jaundice clinic, baby dietetics, lactation clinic, high-risk baby follow-up, neonatal screening, and more.
There is also a statewide emergency transportation programme in Qatar that has moved thousands of neonates from public and private healthcare facilities throughout the country safely and without incident.
