Canada's Global Television to Simulcast 'Combat Hospital' With ABC

TORONTO -- Canadian broadcaster Shaw Media on Monday said it will air Combat Hospital in simulcast with a summer 2011 run on ABC.

The 13-part medical procedural, to air on Shaw Media’s Global Television network, will be set in a hospital inspired by the Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit (MMU) at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.

The homegrown drama will follow Canadian trauma surgeon Rebecca Kincaid as she and her team of resident doctors and nurses from Canada, the U.S., the UK and other allied countries battle to save life and limb on the frontline of the Afghanistan conflict.

No word on casting or series directors. 

“The appeal of Combat Hospital will cut across all demographics and many nationalities. It’ll provide the flip side to an international conflict that comes into our homes every day,” Barb Williams, senior vp of content at Shaw Media, said Monday.

Combat Hospital marks Shaw Media’s second collaboration with ABC after the primetime success of Rookie Blue, a Canadian cop drama now in its second season.

The medical drama will be jointly produced by Canada’s Sienna Films and the UK’s Artists Studio, with Carrie Stein at 3 Arts Entertainment and Simon Vaughan at Lookout Point heading up international sales.

Executive producers are Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny for Sienna Films, and Gub Neal, Justin Thompson-Glover and Patrick Irwin for Artists Studio.

Executive producer/showrunner Dan Petrie Jr. will head up the writing room on the show originally created by Jinder Chalmers and Douglas Steinberg.