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SPORTS enthusiasts in Bahrain are set to have a dedicated clinic to help them avoid injuries as well as quickly recover from niggling and debilitating disasters picked up on the pitch or track.
American Mission Hospital’s (AMH) strategic plan to provide care closer to where communities live is now expanding its health services to Riffa with a special sports medicine and rehabilitation section.
The 3,000sqm Riffa Medical and Dental Centre, which is located across from The Walk Bahrain’s retail and restaurant district, is currently in its completion phase and will be ready for a soft opening by December with a formal launch in January.
Dr George Cheriyan, AMH’s chief medical officer and CEO, revealed the centre will include a sports medical clinic to assess sportsmen and women. It will also house an Olympic-size hydrotherapy swimming pool, the largest of its kind in the kingdom.
“We have a lot of athletes and racers coming to the kingdom and Bahrain is also becoming increasingly conscious about the need to stay fit,” he said
“Having this facility will provide the kingdom’s Olympic athletes, for example, with world class facilities and physicians who can assess them and help with their training.
“It will also evaluate up-and-coming athletes, young adults and children, who are very much into sport and have high potential.
“The sport medicine clinic will be equipped to assist and treat all types of sport injuries. Surgical intervention will not be available on site but post-operative rehabilitation will be done at the clinic. It will have all the capabilities to train, restore and assess.”
The ambulatory care centre, which will be run by a team of 90 doctors, nurses and support staff and headed by Dr Rabih Abouleila, will focus on the wellness and preventative aspect of health care as well as the curative and treatment aspect of injuries and ailments for people of all ages.
The sports medical clinic will be run by Italian Dr Paolo Vaglio who is known for conducting specialised clinics for high-end athletes and organisations including Formula One teams, as well as international football stars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The clinic will be part of the centre’s wellness, hydrotherapy and physiotherapy offerings.
Dr Cheriyan said: “While we will emphasise on injury prevention, we also do have rehabilitation services. We will have evaluative, preventative and curative care run by our specialist physician.”
The hydrotherapy pool will also be used for ‘wellness’ activities and related treatment. “As you age, mobility becomes a problem,” he explained. “Exercise in water eases the pain and keeps people mobile - that’s the preventative wellness part. Also, the pool will be used for recuperative services and post-operative care, especially with people who have issues in the muscular skeletal system recovering from joint surgery, hip surgery and spine surgery and they need physiotherapy.”
Dr Cheriyan added: “Rehabilitation therapy in water is helpful and beneficial. There is a big demand for this in Bahrain. Currently, people have to either go to Salmaniya Medical Complex or to King Hamad University Hospital. These are the two major facilities on the island but our pool is going to be bigger.”
Dr Cheriyan added that physiotherapy will be provided by experts at the clinic too.
“We are proud of this clinic as it will have everything found in ambulatory care centres around the world,” said Dr Cheriyan. “Aside from the sports medical clinic and hydrotherapy pool, we will provide paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology and other subspecialties on one side.
“There will also be an urgent care unit, a special treatment facility for children, a pharmacy, X-ray room and a laboratory all under one roof.
“The centre will also have a dedicated car park for our patients, access to ambulance with an ambulance bay and state-of-the-art facilities like no other clinic in Bahrain.
“The most important thing that people should be aware of is that AMH’s health care strategy is closely linked with the strategy of the Supreme Council of Health in which there will be an increasing private-public partnership in the delivery of health care on the island of Bahrain.”
It will be the third AMH ambulatory care clinic, where medical care is provided on an outpatient basis, including diagnosis, observation, consultation, treatment, intervention and rehabilitation services. The others are located in Amwaj Islands and Saar, the latter of which has announced plans to open 24-hours starting in November.
The not-for-profit hospital is also working on providing new housing units for its staff members in Manama which will be ready next year. It will accommodate up to 180 employees.
