AL AIN // The oldest hospital in Abu Dhabi, where Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, was born, opened the doors of its new home on Sunday with a visit from Royalty.
Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed, National Security Adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Mohammed, Ruler’s Representative in the Eastern Region, and Sheikh Hazza bin Tahnoon were in attendance as Oasis Hospital began a new era.
Founded in 1960 by Americans Pat and Marian Kennedy at the invitation of Founding President Sheikh Zayed, Oasis Hospital was the first modern medical facility in the emirate. It was established to help respond to the very high maternal and infant mortality rates in Al Ain.
The new building, which complements the original hospital, was paid for by a grant from the Ruling Family.
“We have expanded our services and we have a 20-bed neonatal intensive care unit, 12 labour and delivery rooms instead of six, and two isolation rooms,” said Trey Hulsey, president of Oasis Hospital.
“This is something Al Ain needed more of.
“It takes a lot of work and you need staff who know exactly what they are doing in neonatal intensive care.
“We have added about 50 rooms in the new building and we are renovating the Kennedy building to include 17 VIP rooms.
Before the new facility was available, babies that were very sick had to be sent to another hospital.
“Now, we can take care of them here – we have added 12 doctors to the staff,” Mr Hulsey said.
The hospital has also added a neonatologist, and a maternal foetal medicine consultant and intends to employ a paediatric surgeon, meaning it can care for women who are dealing with complicated pregnancies and births.
The Kennedy daughters, Nancy and Kathleen, arrived in Al Ain with their parents when Kathleen was seven and Nancy was two.
“We remember when we arrived, there was nothing here,” said Kathleen, now 62, who works as a doctor in family medicine in California.
“Now it is fantastic that God has blessed this land with wealth, good resources and health.
“My parents would be amazed to see how big and modern this hospital is and that women still come here to give birth.
“When my mother came here at first, women were having a very tough time and the mortality rate was very high.
“There was no electricity, and at night, when my mother had a patient coming for a delivery, I would hold a lantern for her.
“They would work 365 days a year.”
Nancy Kennedy, 58, who is now an English teacher at a community college in Washington state, said she remembered the noise when the babies were born at the hospital and fathers would celebrate by firing their guns in the air.
Albert Simpson, 68, has been a nurse in Oasis Hospital for 38 years providing anaesthesia, sterile services for instruments, outpatient and surgical departments.
“There was a big hall where a doctor would sit in the centre,” he said.
“Patients would come in and we would take their vital signs and tell the doctor the results.
“Only if the doctor needed more privacy would they see a patient in a separate room.”
Dr Daryl Erickson was a surgeon at Oasis between 1976 and 1985.
“The doctors then would see 50 patients five days a week and this made us very efficient,” he said.
“Many people came from Oman.
“We had an old X-ray machine and I had to read my own X-rays, though I had been trained as a general surgeon,” he said.
At yesterday’s opening, the hospital announced that staff volunteers would travel to Yemen and Lebanon to provide medical and surgical aid to war refugees.
The trips will take place in partnership with the Government, through the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation.
arizvi2@thenational.ae
