The Malé Health Services Corporation (MHSC) is expanding its senior management team with three health professionals from the UK, who have been recruited to support the health transformation agenda of the MHSC, accelerate quality improvements, and rigorously hone cost efficiency.
The volunteers were recruited with the assistance of UK-based NGO Friends of Maldives and the Maldivian High Commission in London who together,have selectively been placing health volunteers around the Maldives through the International Volunteer Programme (IVP).
The three volunteers will initially come for one year, extendable to two years, and say they hope to leave a lasting, positive legacy within the MHSC, by developing local leaders in the medical sector.
Cathy Waters will start as the new General Manager of IGMH at the beginning of February 2011. Waters has 17 years of senior health management experience, including eight years as a Chief Executive in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), where she demonstrated exemplary management of staff, personnel issues and substantial budgets in the face of major financial challenges.
Waters has also worked effectively as a senior management consultant, achieving organisational change and strategic development targets. Amongst her many qualifications, she has two Masters Degrees (one in Business Administration), an Advanced Diploma in Coaching, a teaching certificate in further education and is a qualified nurse, midwife and health visitor.
Waters says she believes wholeheartedly in involving the public and service users in providing better health care, and in coaching and developing individual health professionals into new and sustainable roles.
Liz Ambler will begin in the role of Nursing Director for MHSC in mid-March. She currently works for the UK’s Department of Health, whilst her specialist clinical background is in blood disorders and cancer care. With significant senior management experience in UK, the Middle East and Africa, she has a proven track record of improving health care quality whilst reducing expenditure.
Ambler has a Nursing Degree, a Masters in Public Health and a postgraduate certificate in Global Development Management, and says she “can’t wait to get stuck in” training, auditing, and developing clinical guidelines with MHSC’s nurses.
Liz is passionate about nursing, improving patient safety and motivating others to achieve good governance.
Rob Primhak has been appointed as Medical Director of MHSC and will make an initial visit mid-February 2011, before starting in earnest in July when he retires early from his Consultant Paediatrician post to take up this new and challenging role.
Primhak has 35 years of clinical and research expertise, primarily in the fields of respiratory medicine and treatment of children and newborn babies, both in UK and Papua New Guinea. He has successfully introduced innovative services and demonstrated a life-long commitment to the education and training of doctors, through the establishment of new curricula and training programmes. He aspires to leave a lasting impression on clinical governance at MHSC through development of health professionals and clinical quality standards.
“We look forward to working with the UK experts in revamping health care quality at MHSC, and are very optimistic about their successful team efforts in turning around IGMH”, said Mr Zubair Muhammad, Managing Director of MHSC.
Lucy Johnson is the Health Lead for UK-based NGO, Friends of Maldives.
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What is this? Is this news? Free advertisement to FOM? The people have not even started working here. But it is already made into news.
Friends of Maldives may have found thes so called experts and disclosed how much of an expert they are. What is not clear is who is paying for them.If MHSC is paying for them, that means they have to pay for their salary which is usually 10-20 times high for that of a local with same qualification and experience. In addition the MHSC has to pay for their travel, accommodation, living allowance, visa fees and health insurance. Could minivannews let us know how much the MHSC's budget will be spent on these people?
They are all UK citizens. And they claim to have a lot of experience outside their country. But the truth is the locals in the countries do all the work for them and they take credit. How are they going to manage effectively when when they don't even know the language and when all everything is written in Dhivehi at management and administrative level? First there has to be a translator hired for each of them.
As for the rest of the volunteers who FOM brought here, for all I know, they had a good holiday!
Finally! We will see some improvements in that terrible hospital
Absolutely NOT. This must not be allowed to happen. The British have facilitated the Israelis to rule the middle east. They are the pillars behind the Israeli front.
They are christians. They must never be allowed to help manage the IGMH. They will plan, steal and sell the organs of not only the patients but also the minds of the management as well.
So there it is.
Load of crap!!!
Volunteer package: US$ 3000-5000/month depending on experience; return flights to/from Maldives; accommodation; energy bills; local transport to work
@ manager
What is your problem man? Jealousy? Shouldnt you be happy that foreigners are coming here to help the health sector? Which you and i both know need a lot of help? Any Maldivians out there to take these jobs and help run a hospital? If so please do send their CVs..
Do keep the welfare of locals in mind before you thrash out at people who tries to help us!!!!!
Drown your sorrows and bitterness somewhere else
LOZ @ Ali!!
Hospitals here need all the help they can get. We cannot all afford expensive health care for ourselves, our wives, our children, and our parents...like the MPs all want for free in the privileges bill, which will fly them anywhere in SAARC for treatment.
Normal peoples like us need to stay in Male' and hope for the best we can get...
We wish this project all the success for a better health system to help the normal people of this country for a change. Money well spent on the people, and not on the expenses of the top layer of men in this country.
I am sure IGMH need expertise but I doubt whether these western Volunteers can perform well.
IGMH need to well equip there equipments in order to use expertise of these Experts.
Managers can well manage with good resources.
If IGMH cant maintain the equipments and resources in order to perform good treatment then paying a huge amount of money and exporting experts will not make any diffrences.
In this atmosphere Maldivians can't take such a job as most of them are involved in dirty politics. You can't provide a quality service when you are involved in politics. We have seen the behavior of some senior Doctors belonging to Adhalath and PA. How can we believe these people any more. Even we have to pay more an expatriate will provide quality and unbiased service. Today we are experiencing the Morality of our PHD holders who are in the front line to destroy this country as a political revenge. Maldivians be sensible of these mortals.
ali and manager are delusional Maldivians..2 out of many in this country whom are used as weapons by political parties to promote their agenda..
@dhonkamana,
Jealousy? That's quite revealing of the quality of your brain. Sorry to disappoint you but you have done a lousy job so far.
Bringing a few from UK is not going to solve the problem we have. They are used to a system that has been in place for generations before them. They work with machines and technology. We do not have them or the money to get them at the moment. Besides, those Expats would simply would not understand our culture and the kind of problems we have here or the way to deal with them.
The failures and mismanagement at the top of the health sector lies in Her Royal Highness Dr Aminath Jameel. Keeping the core problem and putting layers and layers of State Ministers and Deputy Ministers has obviously not helped. And never will especially when we have idiots like Bari who has no clue what he is supposed to do as State Ministers. I heard he is in low profile. Looks like he has got his hand on dirty money.
Do you know why Minister Jameel got approved by the Majilis? Because the Opposition knows if they keep her, the system will fail on its own without them having to do much work.
Oh, there is the Managing Director of MHSC Mr Zubair. Who the hell is he? What experience does he have as a manager of any place?
Finally throwing out people like Dr Yasir at the Health Ministry would bring much improvement than spending all that money on self made experts!
its good to hear about these changes b ut keep in mind the paying capacity of people needs only guidence and changein health care system change in islands health infrastructure,good salary to doctors ask maldivian doctors to work in islans hospitals
@ Ali - 27th Jan 2011 2:41 PM
"In this atmosphere Maldivians can’t take such a job as most of them are involved in dirty politics."
Just because you are ignorant of the nature of POLITICS these smiley faced volunteers are involved in, it would prove to them how simple minded you are.
They will be laughing at you, tongue in their cheeks!
Go ahead. Prove your idiocy while they take you for a ride when the reality is that most if not all of these so called volunteers, especially in the health sector are evangelical proselytizers, funded by large Christian organizations, whose main target is to change demography of largely deprived populations of the world.
The 'best' and most common innovative ideas they can churn out of their 'clever' brains at management level is to change the logo and structure of a company! After that they will be pressing the government for whatever equipment or gadgets that even the Maldivians or any other management staff were demanding even before these 'volunteers' came and parked their @$$ in the cool room.
If they do not succeed they will blame the government, the culture then pack and leave with a sullen face.
Volunteerism, is a myth, a mirage, a deception!
Cathy joined Dearden early in 2008, as a senior consultant. Prior to that Cathy worked as a Chief Executive of a Primary Care Trust for seven years. Her NHS background spans a period of 28 years, including both clinical (nursing) and managerial/leadership roles in a variety of settings. Cathy has two Masters degrees, a teaching qualification, is an MBTI practitioner and a qualified coach, as well as having nursing, midwifery and health visiting qualifications.
Cathy has also spent some time working in the USA as a nurse and undertook an expedition to Alaska and the Yukon. Throughout her career, Cathy has also had the opportunity to look at other health care systems in both New Zealand and the USA, and to bring back some of the learning and put it into practice in the UK.
@Ali - 'Load of crap!!!' - a comment on your own post perhaps? How on earth do you know that these people are Christians? They are British yes - but unlike Maldives, Britain has freedom of religion and the population is therefore made up of people of all religions and none. A load of crap indeed Ali!
Elizabeth Ambler
Regional Alcohol Programme Manager
Department of Health – East Midlands
Title: Dr
Forenames: Robert Anthony
Surname: Primhak
Gender: Male
Primary Medical Qualifications: MB BS
Date of registration: 14/07/1976
GMC number: 2200431
Title: Dr
Forenames: Robert Anthony
Surname: Primhak
Gender: Male
Primary Medical Qualifications: MB BS
Date of registration: 14/07/1976
GMC number: 2200431
Areas of Expertise
Paediatrics
Specialist Areas
Paediatric respiratory medicine
Paediatric sleep medicine
Paediatric asthma
Special Interests
Chronic lung disease of prematurity
Ostructive sleep apnoea
Ventilation
Practices
Paediatrics
NHS Practices
Sheffield Childrens Hospital
Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust
I am waiting for my brothers at Islamic "Foundation" of the Maldives to put a negative spin on this.
Come brother Fauzy, lets issue one of our usual scaremongering, paranoia-filled, largely delusional, entirely comical and totally baseless statements about this?
this government is dealing with the health care system like its some kind of toy to play with. first came the Apollo, then MHSC, then the fake doctors from Israel and now the British missionaries, oh god, when will all of this end!
I sincerely just hope the commentors on these forums aren't a true reflection of Maldivian society.
If sadly, that is the case, you guys have long long way to go.
I rarely comment on these boards, but the subject matter of some of these comments makes one wonder where the hell do these ideas come from?
@heck (the nut)
Since U showed no signs of improvement, we had to call experts from UK.
Cathy Waters has 17 years of senior health management experience; Primhak has 35 years of clinical and research expertise; Ambler has a Nursing Degree & a Masters in Public Health and a postgraduate certificate in Global Development Management.
Get well soon heck.
"Primhak has clinical and research expertise, both in UK and Papua New Guinea"
"Liz Ambler has senior management experience in UK, the Middle East and Africa"
if these people have such high qualifications and experience as the article claims, repeatedly over and over again, why does they leave their high paid jobs in UK and go work in mosquito-infested, extremely poor countries like Papua New Guine or Africa and now Maldives? is that because they just loved doing humanitarian work or something murkier is at play, like for example, missionary activities?
As the saying goes "edhumeh nethi wedhumeh nukuraaneh"
@live and let live.
I know that. I was mocking the model how some Maldivians used to scare the shit out of fellow countrymen in the recent case of Israeli doctors, who was also trying to helping us.
Whole heartedly, I welcome the help from these professionals.
i find lot of UK people in india and bkk due to poor health system in UK
Medical Qualifications: MB BS and that too in 1976!!
What is this???
Medicine is a quickly evolving subject.
I don't know how a couple of MBBS doctors who graduated three and half decades (35 yrs) ago can be of much help here.
Good to read that Ali's comment was actually sarcastic. It would have been too stupid to be true.
Dr Zubair is actually a very good Maldivian Doctor. Thanks to him I know that the machineries at IGMH are of fantastic quality (some of them donations by a very well-known Maldivian businessman). I don't know what people complain about IGMH, it's a good hospital, comparable to government hospitals in Europe.
Why the "heck" are some Maldivians so afraid of missionaires? Especially when there is not even a threat??? and even if there was... is your faith so weak?? sounds like you have recently acquired it and are not sure about it.
sounds like you are not carrying it in your heart, but like a sign around your neck which someone could take off.
Why this constant paranoic fear? You can't be living quite peacefully with such fear
@ people commenting with the name Ali, Mullah Umar, & Zeenat.
U ppl seems to b suffering frm chronic secular-itis. A terrible mental condition where the patient looses ability to think sanely and is compulsed to blame religion & those who truly follow it. go get help frm the Israeli doctors (oh wait, they were driven away) ahh.. get help frm the "British medical experts" who done MBBS in 1976!
@ marina
well good to knw at least someone is living very peacefully without any fear. well maybe that's because u dnt have a faith to safe guard.
talking abt missionaries. anyone fancy missionary position? :p
hw abt u marina?
@ Marina on Thu, 27th Jan 2011 6:40 PM
"Dr Zubair is actually a very good Maldivian Doctor". Saaaabas, when did Zubair get his medical degree?? As far as i knw hes neither a doctor nor a medical personnel.
"I know that the machineries at IGMH are of fantastic quality, comparable to government hospitals in Europe" oh come on marina give us a break!!
"Elizabeth Ambler
Regional Alcohol Programme Manager"
well.. a suitable person for Maldives to deal with all these secularist alcoholics!
Serving Humanity is one of the highest virtuous values of Humankind. You can also say this is a call in Life for some people. For the skeptical, there is always doubt that people who volunteer will have a (terrible) hidden agenda. For those who have experience "giving" is the path of love and godliness, there is no doubt, a volunteer is mostly true in spirit. Those who distrust will always look for the negative and find it, while those who trust will experience gratitude.
bodumanzaru????
@ Marina
They have their own definition of peace and harmony. If you need to communicate to them you need to talk with in their dictionary.
and marina you have a lot to know and tolerate with these crappy barbaric faith heads.
them = faith heads (in this case Muslims and extremist Muslims)
anyways If i hope the maldives would value the work of the IGMH experts. wish them all the best.
so there is a Mr.zubair and a Dr.Zubair??? i know for sure Mr.Zubair the CEO is a masters holder in some education or teaching field but not a doctor.if i were him i would have resigned long back. the new appointee by the president is doing all the job now and can see the changes in the hospital.its such a shame that educated people in the board of directors and in the management are useless.what a shame for maldivian degree and masters holders, they failed to apply experience or theories into real management. so much for the people who got scholarship under the table during last 30 years.
All Maldivians, wake up. NHS is a failed and highly debted prganisation of UK. They are struggling themselves to manage in UK and they provide one of the worst medical care service in europe. The only thing their staff do is drink tea and talk all day. Do not be in this false belief that they can change Maldives health system. They can't do anything. They are just going to waste your time. Thats all.
It will take a long time for people to put their trust back in IGMH. The place is crumbling. If these new recruits can actually bring some good solid changes to IGMH then its very good. However, if they do not show results in their first year of contract, no need to keep them. Also I feel its not just human resource IGMH is lacking. Equipment as well. And a bit of honesty, and a great deal of logistics too.
@Manager. Just to let you know about your concern of whos paying for these people- did U notice that these are Volunteers. Have a good day.
@ mohamed abdul
sometimes these "volunteers" take away more money with allowances than the paid employees. I can recall a German urologist who came as a volunteer to IGMH, who was paid $10,000 a month.
:/
Apologize for saying Zubair is a good doctor. Have mistaken him with someone else. However, my comment about the machineries at IGMH is correct.
U.k NHS isn't the worlds best run social health care system. although they are better at it than in the Maldives. Some misguided people possibly having some inferiority complex are spewing about not knowing the culture, maybe a complete change in culture of tacking the problem will bring good here. Today scientists stands on the shoulders of giants, lets hope that these professionals stand too on the shoulders of giants, modern civilization experience and the UK today goes synonymously.
Apologize for saying that the machinery of IGMH are of good quality. Have mistaken it too.
Damn it, i shouldn't have taken that drink!
"I don’t know how a couple of MBBS doctors who graduated three and half decades (35 yrs) ago can be of much help here."
Clearly you don't know anything about professional health care. I would go as far as to say, you don't know anything about professional life at all.
ANY professional, whether they got qualified in 1976, 1900 or 1700(!) continuously keep themselves up-to-date. What you learn at University just PREPARES you for your lifelong career!
You actually get 99.99% of your knowledge and experience from your career and on-the-job training! I guess I'm preaching to the wrong crowd here as you don't seem to understand the life of a professional worker.
I also DO sincerely hope that the views expressed by most of the posters here is NOT a reflection of Maldivian society. If that's the case, then the best thing for Maldives will be to close the gates, shut yourselves in and hope you don't wipe out yourselves before sea-level rise does!
The people who are coming here are very WELCOME as they have VOLUNTEERED their services for the people of this country. Should they have sinister motives for doing this? There's a saying that 'thieves think like thieves'. So if YOU think they have sinister motives, the YOU are the one who has got sinister motives in the first place.
There are lots of highly qualified people who voluntarily go to 3rd world countries to do what little they can do to improve the condition of humanity. There is no ulterior motive behind this. It's simply because we ALL have to live together on this planet and we need to help each other!
The wealth and breadth of experience of the volunteers described in the article cannot be matched by ANY group of people in the Maldives, currently.
As noted in the article, the three people have different areas of expertise. God knows that the Maldivian health care system is in dire need of urgent help!
If you pump millions of dollars to the EXISTING health service in the Maldives, it's just going to go down the drain! You need a proper system of administration and a whole overhaul of the system for providing health care.
Where is the primary care in this country? Where are the G.P.s? Why does everyone has to go to a HOSPITAL for a headache/fever?
I do sincerely hope that these VOLUNTEERS are not put off by the extremely negative, bigotted and downright intolerable views expressed by the majority of people here!
The people of the Maldives have enjoyed the services of PROFESSIONAL medical care of British doctors and nurses before!
That was when R.A.F operated their staging post in Gan/Addu. A handful of R.A.F doctors and nurses provided FREE healthcare fo thousands of people of Addu at a level which has not been matched to this day. And this was over 40 years ago!
Clearly, the R.A.F medical facility at Gan did not have a budget of millions of pounds/dollars. What they had was a highly effective unit in providing health care.
Can this be done by locals here in 2011? Doesn't look like it!
I should correct that R.A.F doctors not only provided FREE healthcare for the people of Addu; they also provided FREE healthcare for ANY other Maldivian who came and asked for it.
In fact, the aristocracy of Male' were constant visitors needing their services.
Why do the title call these 'medical' experts. These are managers so why not call them what they are...?
For your information.We dont need them here.Maldivian Health System has been paralysed by politicians out to acquire personal waelth at the expense of common man on the street.Howmany of you know that NHS has been revamped and these people have been out of job.Voluntary means salary,housing aloowance,etc......???????
Volunteers are not people who goes to other countries to help or to work free. We have seen people who came to work in the Maldives before under volunteer programs from UK and Australia. They were people with very little or limited knowledge than they claim to be. These volunteers are people who work in other countries to learn and get experience for themselves for their own good. When they return back to their country they are regarded as experts for the country they worked in. These volunteers are given better pay than their co workers, better accommodation and better everything than the locals. And as I said before major chunk of what they say they did will be done by the locals.