Article 9 of the Saudi Private Health Institutions Law

This article sets a minimum capacity for private hospitals by type:

• General hospital: not fewer than 30 beds.
• Two-specialty hospital: not fewer than 20 beds.
• Single-specialty hospital: not fewer than 10 beds.

What does this mean in practice? Anyone who wants to establish a private hospital must first decide its type and then plan a capacity not below the minimum set for it. A general hospital with fewer than 30 beds does not meet this requirement.

A hospital, under Article 1, is any place equipped to receive patients, examine them, treat them and admit them as inpatients, so beds are an essential element of it. Complexes and clinics are not covered by this minimum, because the article concerns hospitals.

The article sets only a minimum and no maximum. It does not itself define what is meant by a general hospital, a two-specialty hospital or a single-specialty hospital, so the distinction between the three types is referred to what the Law and its Implementing Regulations determine.

Article 10 follows, which requires the hospital to provide the necessary number of doctors, specialists, consultants, pharmacists, technicians, nurses and supporting health staff according to its capacity and classification grade, so the number of beds in turn affects the size of staff required.