Not only does Dr George Cheriyan, the newly-arrived CEO at American Mission Hospital, want more hospitals to serve Bahrain, he looks forward to the growth of medical care at home.

New Saar hospital
An important new development for the American Mission Hospital (AMH) includes a new 100-bed hospital in Saar.

Dr Cheriyan says “We anticipate starting the project at the beginning of 2011 with hopefully a two-year completion time.”

AMH has preliminary support for the project from the government, including from the ministers of health and finance. Dr Cheriyan is also hopeful of finding financial support both from the government and the community.

“In addition to the 50-bed hospital already here, says Dr Cheriyan, “the planned facility in Saar will be a 100-bed hospital. As that opens, all of the services, with additional new services, will move across to Saar. The Manama site will cater predominantly to the elderly and hospice care.”

The American Mission Hospital presently has about 480 staff. Dr Cheriyan notes, “When the new facility opens, we will probably have to increase our primary health care staff (doctors and nurses) by at least 30 per cent.”

“In November we’re getting either the finance or health minister to kick off a fund-raising event with the government chipping in and getting the support of the big families here. Those who contribute will be partners, though, not shareholders, as AMH is a non-profit hospital.”

Impressive architectural plans, by a German architectural firm with experience in health care, for the new Saar facility have already been completed. Dr Cheriyan has been busily working with the architects for the past seven months.

Developing the original AMH
Speaking of the AMH generally, Dr Cheriyan notes, “None of the mission values of the hospital are going to change.

This facility has been unique for the island and it has supported the people of Bahrain for so many decades.”

Forty per cent of AMH employees are from Bahrain. “We are the single largest health care provider that has the maximum number of Bahrainis working for us,” says Dr Cheriyan.

Access problems in Manama, though, make growth in the original facility impossible, “so we really can’t scale up or build anything new here,” he adds. “There’s no way you can modernise such an old hospital. It needs a new facility.”

According to Dr Cheriyan, AMH now needs to get ready to take on health care of the future. “My main role in coming here is to take the legacy of this hospital and to scale it up to the future.”

He also says about AMH in Manama, “Operationally, we need to become a lot more efficient. I came to this job after having worked for 18 years at Saudi Aramco,” where he headed the intensive care unit and chaired the Quality Council.

As head of this body, Dr Cheriyan’s role was to oversee all of the operations of the hospital in relation to patient safety, which is to prevent medical error, accidents that patients suffer and to ensure that the patients have the best care possible.

He considers his experience in quality the major expertise that he brings to AMH.

“I chose to leave my job with Aramco to come here to a much smaller mission hospital and give back to people. I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve trained in the best hospitals in the world,” he admits.