Dubai hospital opening in 2018 to offer liver transplants

DUBAI // A hospital being built in Dubai is expected to be the first in the UAE to offer liver transplants.

King’s College Hospital London Dubai is expected to open in Dubai Hills at the end of 2018. Plans to provide liver transplants to patients were announced during a ground-breaking ceremony on Tuesday.

The procedures will use living-related transplants, meaning that the liver donor is a relative of the patient.

Hospital officials said the service will allow UAE patients a less disruptive and more affordable option for recovery, without needing to travel to get life-changing operations and follow-ups.

The hospital previously opened clinics in Dubai and a medical and surgical centre in Abu Dhabi.

Prof Nigel Heaton, consultant liver transplant surgeon and director of transplant surgery at King’s Dubai, said that a donation from Sheikh Zayed, Founding Father of the UAE, helped to establish the hospital’s liver research centre in London.

“Thirty-seven years ago, a very generous and visionary man decided to give thousands of patients another chance at life,” said Prof Heaton.

“We truly look forward to building on the legacy he started by giving back to this very community through offering local patients in need living-related liver transplants in the near future.”

The new hospital will have four centres of excellence: obstetrics, gynaecology and foetal medicine; paediatrics; diabetes and endocrinology; and orthopaedics.

tzriqat@thenational.ae