UMM AL QUWAIN // Curling her tiny fingers around her cream blanket, tiny Aya Hamdan is one of the latest additions to arrive at the maternity unit.
Holding her new daughter, who weighed in at a healthy 3.3kg, mother Maha Mohammed, 27, is pleased that Sheikh Khalifa General Hospital offers world-class services a short distance from her home.
“It is very good,” she says. “I am very happy here.”
Proud father Wael Hamdan, 31, a Jordanian, is delighted at the arrival of his daughter, delivered by Caesarean section on March 9 – one of about 10 babies born each week at the new hospital.
“She is perfect,” he says. “I’m so excited. It was so smooth from the admission process, to the operation, the surgery. Everything was so smooth.”
Mr Hamdan, a nurse manager at the hospital, is proud that his wife and child are being looked after so well.
“I believe it will improve the efficiency of the Northern Emirates,” he says.
Ali Al Mandoos, 42, an Emirati, travelled from Ajman to bring his elderly mother – suffering with gastroenteritis, a urinary tract infection, vomiting and diarrhoea – to the hospital’s emergency department. It opened in December and takes walk-ins but does not yet receive trauma and medical emergencies.
Nevertheless, staff treat more than 70 patients a day in the 24-hour unit and that number is expected to double when it is fully operational.
Mr Al Mandoos had heard good things about the hospital and wants to see first-hand the quality of care. “Everyone has been Sheikh Khalifa General Hospital this and Sheikh Khalifa General Hospital that,” he said.
His first impression is positive. “It is the ‘iPhone 5’ of hospitals,” he says, with a grin.
Sheikha Budoor Al Mualla, 30, an Emirati, says the hospital is an asset to the community.
“The Ministry of Public Affairs did a big job for this hospital,” she says. “We have another hospital here in UAQ but it is small so I think we are happy with this.
“I hear many comments about this hospital – that it is a good hospital and that the Government do it for the people. Not only in UAQ but in Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah.”
jbell@thenational.ae
