Burjeel Holdings Creates Day Surgery Platform for Gulf Expansion

Burjeel Holdings has pulled its ambulatory and same-day care operations into a single platform, a structure the group intends to use as it widens its day surgery footprint across the Gulf.

Four further centres in the UAE and two in Saudi Arabia sit inside the company's current mid-term plan. The UAE sites will run under shared clinical and operational oversight, with financial management handled centrally, Burjeel said in a statement on Wednesday.

Three appointments were made to lead the unit. Arun Lobo takes the chief executive role, Pawan Sharma becomes chief financial officer and Omer Baldo is chief medical officer.

Burjeel said the platform hands it a repeatable operating model for later growth, covering both greenfield development and partnerships in the UAE and selected GCC markets.

Separate economics from a hospital

Shamsheer Vayalil, the group's chairman and chief executive, said day surgery is not simply an extension of the traditional hospital model. It carries its own operating dynamics, capital requirements and growth potential, he said. As the group expands, he added, the platform will let it carry out appropriate procedures in a more focused same-day setting, leaving its major hospitals to take on increasingly complex care.

Vayalil ranked fourth in the founders and shareholders category of a 2026 list of the region's top healthcare leaders. His net worth is estimated at $1.7 billion as of October 1, 2026.

Centres already trading in the UAE

Burjeel's day surgery centres in the UAE are located on Al Reem Island, in Shahama, in Al Dhafra and in Al Dhahir, Al Ain.

The planned additions fall within a broader 18-asset mid-term growth programme spanning several healthcare segments in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC. Burjeel is assembling specialised platforms alongside its hospital network, and day surgery is the latest of them.

The numbers behind each Saudi site

A Burjeel One day surgery centre in Saudi Arabia requires roughly $38 million (AED 140 million) of capital expenditure. At maturity, the company expects each one to bring in more than $54.5 million (AED 200 million) of annual revenue, at an EBITDA margin in the mid-20s.

Those figures shape how fast the two Saudi centres can be built and how soon they contribute. The six sites now on the drawing board — four in the UAE, two in Saudi Arabia — are the near-term additions, and any greenfield builds or partnerships that follow in the UAE and selected GCC markets would be run through the same structure.