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NEWS BITES
HMC and partners come together to form AHS
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n the presence of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser, regional and international healthcare leaders and experts gathered in Doha in August to mark a formal commitment by Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) and their partners to bring the very best of international health care practices to Qatar through the establishment of an Academic Health System. During a partnership signing ceremony at the Ritz-Carlton, HMC and its partners – WCMC-Q, University of Calgary Qatar (UCQ), Primary Health Care (PHC), Qatar University (QU), Sidra Medical and Research Center and College of the North Atlantic, Qatar (CNAQ) – pledged their commitment to further developing high quality patient care and a healthy population through academic excellence and pioneering research. Academic Health Systems (AHS) are partnerships between leading learning and research institutions and healthcare providers. They are recognised internation-
DR HANAN AL-KUWARI, DIRECTOR, HMC. AHS WILL DEVELOP STRATAGIES TO TRANSFORM HMC INTO A FACILITY OF HIGH-QUALITY CARE
ally as a model for pioneering research and medical discoveries and for making them available to patients. They are synonymous around the world with academic excellence and delivery of the highest quality patient care. The AHS launch in Qatar is the first of its kind in the region. “We have together developed a strategy which will transform HMC and its partners
into an academic health system capable of delivering the highest quality of care for our patients,” said HMC Managing Director, Dr Hanan Al-Kuwari. "As all of the academic and healthcare providers will be brought together into a single partnership working towards a shared vision and strategic plan, educational programmes will be aligned with workforce and training needs."
QEWC gets A 1 from Moody’s
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lobal credit rating agency Moody’s assigned a first time long-term local currency issuer rating of ‘A1’ to Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) with a 'stable' outlook. The rating is mainly supported by the beneficial contractual framework put in place by Qatar that significantly reduces its exposure and its Qatari joint ventures to common industry risks for utilities – namely regulatory, demand and price risks. The company benefits from a stable op-
14 Qatar Today
september 2011
erating cash flow stream, which is derived from secure, long-term power purchase agreements as well as from power and water purchase agreements with the 100% government-owned Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) acting as sole off-taker. It also benefits from a government guarantee with respect to its financial obligations under contracts with QEWC for plants commissioned after 2002. All its plants are gas-fired and gas purchase agreements are all with Qatar Petroleum.
“Capacity-derived payments are structured in all agreements to ensure that fixed operating costs, investment costs, an agreed return on equity and comprehensive debt servicing are covered on a cash basis,” said Franck Nowak, a Dubai-based Analyst in Moody’s Corporate Finance Group and lead analyst for QEWC. The cost pass-through mechanisms that are built into the tariffs mitigate QEWC’s exposure to any volatility in prices and gives QEWC’s financial performance stability, according to the analyst.