Operating a Residential Building for Children with Cancer and Their Families

When leading medical organisations provide accommodation for their patients with life-threatening illnesses and cancer, and for their companions, during treatment, it helps — God willing — to strengthen their positive motivation and so speed their response to treatment.

With that in mind, King Fahad National Centre for Children's Cancer has since its founding provided suitable, comfortable accommodation for patients and their companions travelling from outside Riyadh whose financial circumstances do not allow them to rent accommodation near the Centre. A child's treatment can sometimes run for several months, which would place a very heavy cost on the patient's family.

• The Centre opened in 1997.

• King Fahad National Centre for Children's Cancer is the only standalone centre for treating childhood cancer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.

• The Centre is an integral part of King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, providing advanced medical services to children with blood disorders and tumours in both inpatient wards and outpatient clinics.

• The Centre was equipped along the lines of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, USA — regarded as the finest American centre specialising in the treatment of tumours and cancer.

• 400 new cases a year are admitted to the Children's Cancer Centre / King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, compared with 370 cases a year at St. Jude in the United States.

Operating the (Malikat Al-Layl) residential building at King Fahad National Centre for Children's Cancer in the Al-Narjis district of north Riyadh, to house child patients and their families travelling from outside Riyadh who cannot afford to rent accommodation for themselves and their child throughout the child's treatment.

The building comprises:

• (27) rooms with en-suite bathrooms

• A women's waiting lounge

• A men's waiting lounge

• A children's play area

• A dining area

• Round-the-clock parking

This is delivered by contracting an organisation working in hotel or serviced-apartment operation to run the accommodation and everything it involves, such as:

• Providing meals

• Cleaning

• Laundry

• Transport to and from the Centre or the hospital where required

• Round-the-clock reception

Operating the charitable housing building and helping the treatment of children with tumours and cancer at King Fahad National Centre for Children's Cancer succeed, by housing patients and their companions travelling from outside the Riyadh region during their treatment. Everything needed for safe treatment is provided, such as:

• Rooms prepared to a high standard of cleanliness

• Healthy meals

• Coordination of patients' appointments

• Transport to the hospital

Children with tumours and cancer and their companions (those most in need) travelling from outside the Riyadh region during their treatment at King Fahad National Centre for Children's Cancer.

Beneficiaries a year: more than 2,457.

• Creating more treatment opportunities for patients in need and their companions travelling from outside Riyadh for treatment at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, and making sure patients do not drop out of their treatment plans.

• Increasing capacity to admit and treat patients.

• Shortening the wait for patients on the waiting list.

• Reducing treatment costs for patients, particularly those in difficult financial circumstances.

• Improving the emotional wellbeing of the patient and their family.

SAR 1,796,850 a year.