Neom: One of the ‘healthiest place in the world’ – for whom?
A recent puff piece in Construction Weekly celebrates claims by Neom that it will be “one of the healthiest places in the world”, whenever – or if – it is completed.
Neom’s executive director of health and wellbeing Dr. Maliha Hashmi boasted that the $500bn gigaproject will be a world-leader in health care: “While Neom will have a general hospital, it is intended as a last resort,” she said.
“There will be several health centres where residents can proactively seek advice from specialists such as nutritionists, psychologists, and life coaches, saving hospital visits for those with chronic conditions or those that have advanced beyond prevention.”
Dr. Hashmi, who is also deputy chair of Neom’s Covid-19 leadership taskforce, also claimed: “Safety is a top priority for Neom. Our Covid-19 strategy has constantly evolved to ensure the health and well-being of Neom employees and continued delivery of business outcomes.”
She added: “Almost all NEOM employees were screened periodically. Enhanced hygiene practices including handwashing were encouraged, and mental health and psychological support were provided.”
One thing missing in the interview with Dr Hashmi, who also talks at length about the use of artificial intelligence to provide healthcare, was who, exactly, this healthcare would be provided for.
Would the physical and mental wellbeing of the 20,000 Huwaitat community, currently being forced from their land, terrorised, harassed, and even killed by the regime, be taken care of?
She also neglects to mention the hundreds of African immigrants who have been kept in subhuman conditions by the Saudi regime in cramped and filthy cells, ostensibly to prevent the spread of Covid-19. In the camps in which they are detained, reports suggest the disease is rife, suicides are common and basic sanitation is unavailable.
We can therefore perhaps assume that this space-age vision of healthcare will be given only to those with the money to pay for it.
All of the talks of Neom’s virtues, however outlandish and unlikely, is targetted only at those who Saudi Arabia hopes to bring money into the kingdom’s megacity project. The migrant labourers, the tribespeople displaced from their land and others not fitting the economic model citizen may well be excluded from this brave new world.
READ: Al-Huwaitat..Time for bin Salman to correct his mistakes at home
