Roha Medical Campus has received investments worth US$42 million from shareholders for the construction of a new hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The healthcare provider stated that the funds represent the “the first tranche of a $130 million investment to build Phase 1 of Roha Medical Campus – a 350-bed world-class hospital.”

The hospital, due to open in 2025, is already under construction. Additional shareholder funding, as well as loans worth $70 million from a “development financial institution”, are expected to make up the remainder of the Phase 1 costs.

Further developments worth $200 million have also been planned to expand the campus following the general hospital’s opening, including a number of specialised medical facilities, as well as a “teaching, research, and innovation hub”.

Ethiopia’s first JCI-accredited hospital

The Roha Medical Campus is designed to be Ethiopia’s first Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited hospital facility, and will offer a range of treatments to patients.

In addition to emergency treatment and routine care, “specialty treatments will include orthopaedics, neurosurgery, spine treatment, interventional cardiology, cardiac surgery, endovascular interventions, nuclear medicine, and oncology treatments”.

A hub for medical tourism

At least three quarters of patients at the new facility are expected to be Ethiopian, and Roha Medical Campus has committed to receiving “significant numbers” of referrals from the government heath system “at discounted rates”.

Additionally, the hospital – which benefits from being less than a kilometre from Addis Ababa International Airport – is expected to serve as a major hub for medical tourism in the region.

While initially some of the hospital’s physicians will be expats, Roha Medical Campus stated that it has planned an “extensive training programme”, with the aim of “enabling [it] to have a predominantly Ethiopian medical team within five years”.

Croatia’s Rijeka University Hospital also opened a new €158 million hospital complex earlier this month.