QATAR - Health & Education
Owner & Managing Director, Elite Medical Center
Bio
Osama Hassan Salha studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and began his specialization in the field of fertility and reproductive medicine at Hammersmith Hospital in London. He became the first Arab doctor to obtain the position of sub-specialist in reproductive medicine and surgery from the Royal College Obstetrics and Gynecology in London. He later joined St. James University Hospital and become the first Arab doctor to obtain a PhD in the field of IVF from the University of Leeds in 2002. He later joined Dar Al-Shifa Hospital in Kuwait as the head of the department of obstetrics and gynecology and the IVF Unit, and subsequently the Royal Hayat Hospital. In 2016, he returned to Doha to establish Elite Medical Center and set up the first private IVF Unit in Doha.
What have been the main highlights for Elite Medical Center since its establishment in Qatar in 2017?
Our research about the private healthcare sector in Qatar showed that most facilities were quite small with no specific focus on luxury services. Elite Medical Center is the first purpose built one-day surgery medical center in Qatar, where patients are cared for in a luxurious yet comfortable and welcoming environment. The center is housed in a 2,200-sqm, three-story building located on Al Jazeera Al-Arabiya street, which is very convenient. Each medical department has a designated 220-sqm area with its own reception and private waiting area. Our medical departments include obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dental, radiology, family medicine, internal medicine, ENT, dermatology, plastic surgery, and IVF. Moreover, we have three fully equipped operating theaters, eight single preparation rooms, a four-bed recovery area, and four inpatient rooms.
How has Elite Medical Center contributed to one of the best healthcare systems in the world?
We wanted to contribute in two different ways. The first is to provide a state-of-the-art IVF unit with the latest technology for people who are unable to have children and have not been able to access fertility treatment via Qatar’s public healthcare system. When we set up Elite Medical Center in 2016, there were no private IVF units in Qatar and only one government IVF unit at Hamad Women’s Hospital to serve the whole population of Qatar. Obviously, that one unit was unable to cope with the huge demand, and as a result, people were traveling abroad to places such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan for IVF treatment. Our second goal was to establish a one-day surgery with highly trained personnel capable of performing all forms laparoscopic procedures. This service falls between a conventional medical center that only treats outpatients and a fully-fledged hospital with overnight stays. We have also managed to staff the center with doctors and nurses from different backgrounds having received education or training abroad. Hence, our staff bring different clinical and surgical perspective of practice, from practicing in Europe and America.
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