Al-Huwaylat

Dishing out departmental cake in the ICU at Al-Huwylat Hospital in Jubail (1988). We closed out the hospital a few months later.

The 200-bed Al Huwaylat Hospital was built by the H.B. Zachry Co. of San Antonio, USA, and arrived on site virtually in kit form. It was then assembled room by room, each module having been delivered complete, down to the toilet-paper holders in the bathrooms. Even the hospital's prayer room, which had mosque carpets and lighting directed toward Mecca, was built in Alabama and transported the (then) remote area of what was to become the Jubail Industrial City. It was opened in 1980, and closed, having fulfilled its purpose, only eight years later (when GEH handed over all the medical equipment to the new Al-Fanateer Hospital). Al-Huwaylat is now operated as a private hospital by Ebrahim Almana. I last visited there in December 1996.

Steve at Jubail in 1988. Still one of the best biomeds I've ever worked with!

Bowling at the Holiday Inn at Jubail, Christmas 1987.

Oman

The 634-bed Royal Hospital in Oman (1987). I was on site for almost exactly one year.

The year previous, following an invitation by the architects to become involved, Peter Shephard and I formed Healthtec Ltd. to provide equipment inspection services. Our brief at the Royal was to ensure that all equipment complied in every respect with a final specification (ie, as previously agreed between contractor and client) and was correctly located, installed and ready for handover to the client. Following some detailed preparatory work at our UK office in High Wycombe, I went out to site with Terry Horton and we built up a team whose size and composition responded pretty accurately to the varying inspections workload. Peter was very good at finding suitable people and sending them out at short notice, and the team peaked at nine. I was on site for the final year of construction (mid 1986 to mid 1987) and was the last of our team to leave. The client was the Omani MOH, contractor George Wimpey International, equipment sub-contractor Shanning International, architect Percy Thomas Partnership (although we acted on behalf of the architect's team, our client was in fact GWI and we were paid from their local office).

In many ways, I regard this period (together with my time at SATCO, at that some three years into the future) as the "high-point" of my career (sad, but true). It is certainly a time that I often refer back to, if only as an example of what can be done!

The Armed Forces Hospital in Oman nearing the end of construction in 1985. That's my little brown Mazda 323 in front of the site office. It was a great little car that was able to go anywhere, seemingly able to just skim over sandy surfaces (of which, of course, there were plenty around)!

Peter Shephard in the site office at the Armed Forces Hospital. He is hard at work marking off my inspections in the room-by-room printout. No computers then, although we were thinking about getting one for the next job! This was an exciting time, as there were many new hospital projects about, and we believed that we had a "winning formula". Indeed, we thought it was going to last for ever!

Jordan

The well-known entrance to the King Hussein Medical Centre in Amman, Jordan (1985).