MUSCAT Children hospitals

Giving to Boston Children's Hospital Boston Children's specialists keep Tate happy, healthy and on the go, chasing after his big brother. Your support helps us advance care through researchimproving the lives of children around the globSince its inception, Nova Medical Centers has successfully combined the four critical elements of patient care - expert doctors, cutting edge technology, ethical practices and a caring environment. Nova endeavours to provide its patients with the best healthcare services available. Our focus is medical expertise, excellent nursing care and quality diagnostics.Nova begins its Middle East operations with the launch of a polyclinic at Al Khuwair, Muscat, bringing the same Nova values that have enhanced the lives of thousands of patients in other cities. In 2013, Nova will commence short-stay surgeries at its standalone center in Al Ghubra, Muscat, that will significantly augment its services in the region. Nova Medical Centers Middle East LLC is a joint venture between Nova Medical Centers, India, and the, a premier, diversified group of over 75 companies in the Sultanate of Oman. Nova Medical Centers, India, operates two medical divisions: India's leading chain of short-stay surgical institutions, and Nova-IVI Fertility – a joint venture between Nova Medical Centers and the world's foremost institute for assisted infertility treatment, headquartered in Spain Private Hospitals & Clinics Apollo Medical Centre Apollo Medical Centre (AMC) is associated to the Apollo Hospitals Group – India, Asia’s largest and most trusted healthcare group. Apollo Medical Centre is a well known healthcare provider in the Sultanate of Oman which provides the most modern state-of-the-art healthcare services under one roof with highly motivated and dedicated professionals. Shell employees are covered by BUPA International health insurance. Some hospitals will charge BUPA directly the insurance but for some you will need to pay the bills directly at the hospitals and use the BUPA claim forms to apply for reimbursement. Refer to the Shell International Mobility website for full details of your cover: You can usually attend any recognised medical establishment and organise and pay for your treatment and apply for reimbursement from BUPA against receipts and using the Shell BUPA form. However, in all cases it is best to check with BUPA that your treatment will be covered prior to any treatment. Please refer to the BUPA website) further details. Please refer to your membership card for telephone numbers. Some clinics and hospitals in Oman are able to directly invoice BUPA for your treatment so you will not have to pay first and claim back. For Shell employees using the PDO clinic, you will need to pay for your treatment at the clinic by salary deduction and then complete a BUPA claim form to reclaim your expenses in the normal way. lease see section 3.1.3 for recommended vaccinations prior to travel. The Omani government has carried out intensive public-health initiatives in conjunction with the WHO and UNICEF that have virtually eliminated most tropical diseases including malaria. Overall, it is wise to take precautions and avoid mosquito bites by wearing trousers, long sleeves and socks when outside after sunset and use insect repellent.Rabies is present. If you are bitten, seek medical advice immediately.A special warning for heat strokes and heat exhaustion is in place during the summer months. At any time of the year, new arrivals should try to become acclimatised (10 to 14 days of limited heat exposure). It is recommended to drink a lot of water and isotonic drinks (brands available in Oman are Gatorade, Isostar and Pocari Sweat), and to protect the skin and the head from the sun.As you will find that so much of your time will be spent in cold, air-conditioned rooms, you may also find that you pick up colds more often than usual. Medical Facilities Oman has an extensive public health service (free to Omani nationals), with approximately 49 Ministry of Health hospitals and many health centres and preventative health centres. See the Ministry of Health website for full statistics:. However, costs are high for foreigners and health insurance is essential.In addition, some employees like to extend their BUPA medical insurance to include Travel Cover with the additional payments for their own account. Please contact BUPA directly for further information. Public Hospitals Al Nahda Hospital specialises in ENT surgery, eye surgery and treatment, as well as dental surgery, dermatology and diseases of the nervous system. It is Oman’s main referral hospital for thyroid gland operations. Khoula Hospital is an integral part of Oman’s Ministry of Health, and takes the roles assigned to it by the Ministry. Khoula is a Tertiary Care National referral hospital which provides specialized services. Khoula’s unique role is by serving as Oman’s National Trauma Center. It is the centre for Neurosurgery, Orthopaedics, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and is the Nation’s providers of Orthotic and Prosthetic services. SQUH currently provides several unique services and certain specialized medical facilities that are unique in Oman. The Renal Transplant Unit provides the surgical expertise and laboratory services for kidney transplants as part of a national program in Oman. The Bone Marrow Transplant Unit and the Cord Blood Bank are the only ones serving the entire country. The unit of Family and Community Medicine is regarded as an exemplary one by the World Health Organization (WHO), in addition the specialized investigation of various kinds i.e. Clinical Physiology, the one of its kind in the Gulf area. The founders of St. Jude India ChildCare Centres uncovered a huge unmet social need to provide a safe and clean environment for children to recuperate during their Cancer treatment. These children, along with their families, travel to Mumbai from distant towns and villages, in the hope of being cured at the Tata Memorial Hospital, where they receive free of charge treatment. Unfortunately, while the hospital is able to provide medical treatment to these children, they Raffah Hospital Muscat, A genuine willingness to care with absolute readiness to extend the best healthcare facilities ever – this is the dream that has been realized at the Al Raffah Hospital. We have the best available remedial facilities which enable first-class assistance in helping the simplest to the most complex cases tread on the path of recovery. Supported by a qualified group of specially handpicked physicians, nurses, paramedics and other healthcare professionals, from diverse multicultural backgrounds, we are focused on providing outstanding comprehensive care to ensure greatest patient comfort. often have no place to live and end up sleeping on the footpaths outside the hospital, in terribly unhygienic conditions. As we know from our own experiences with people suffering from chronic diseases like Cancer, the environment in which we convalesce is important to ensure that treatment is effective. However, these children, who already have severely weakened immunity systems due to their ongoing chemotherapy, become susceptible to various infections and other diseases which make the treatment they receive at Tata Memorial Hospital ineffective. OUR ROLE St. Jude with its centres in different cities provides free of cost housing for these children and their parents, along with free nutritional support, transportation services to take these children to the hospital, counseling services as well as activities such as 'art-based therapy' to keep them engaged and motivated during their time away from the hospital. Our goal is to create a "home away from home" for these children, by providing them with the physical and emotional necessities that will give them a better chance of beating Cancer. In March 2012 we have extended to Kolkata and opened our first Centre there. We have plans to open Centres in other cities alongside hospitals which provide quality treatment. WHY ARE WE DIFFERENT? At St. Jude, we don’t just seek to provide shelter to these child patients. Our mission and work rests firmly on our core value, that high quality and holistic healthcare facilities should be available to all regardless of their economic status. We have therefore incorporated the highest quality standards in all aspects of the care we provide – including the hygiene and cleanliness of our centres, the food grains we provide to our families and the quality of educational and recreational support we offer. In a country where care for the needy, has long been accepted as dismal, at best, St. Jude is working to not only fill in a large unmet need, but also to fundamentally change this mindset . ast year. After doing some research we opted to head to Starcare because Mrs Sythe was expecting. We chose Starcare purely because of the good things we had heard about one of their Dr’s, Dr Anita Zutshi. This is a bit of a long post, so I'm warning you now! We booked an appointment to see a Gynecologist and were unable to see Dr Anita and were referred to the other Dr at Starcare who handles pregnancies, Dr Bindu. After our first appointment, we decided we no longer wanted to see Dr Bindu as we just did not like her attitude, and purchased a package and insisted on Dr Anita from then onwards. The package cost us RO 450 and included all of the appointments, a number of scans and tests and the post-birth follow up appointment. Dr Anita was very, very good, and we were very happy with her as our Dr, she was very clear and explained everything to us with great patience. The technology available was better than experienced at a local hospital in Canada. You have access to 4D ultrasound scanning, and when you go for your scan, the woman lays on a bed and has a 32” flat screen mounted on the wall in front which shows everything that’s on the monitor that the doctor uses – a nice touch. However, the administration staff at Starcare are beyond bad. They are in another world of bad, and the number of problems caused by the administration staff eventually led to us switching to Muscat Private Hospital. Let me explain, in the course of the pregnancy, we spent over 12 hours waiting to see the Doctor after our scheduled appointment. It was quite common to have to wait up to 2 hours after our scheduled time to see the Doctor. We started calling the administration staff the day of our appointment to ask when we should come in, only to be told to come at our allotted time because “everything is on time today”. It never was. Perhaps the most memorable occasion was, after waiting for 2 and a half hours and seeing people go ahead of us time and time again, we discovered that the administration staff thought we had not turned up for our appointment –and that our registration card that was sitting on their desk was just there for fun. Or perhaps the best moment was being repeatedly charged for services we had already paid for in our package. Nevertheless we persevered with Starcare because we really did like and appreciate Dr Anita. The day of the birth was also fairly stressful, as you might imagine. We have spent a great deal of time making our minds up to tell our birth story but we figured that knowledge is power, especially for people expecting a baby, or even their first like it was for us, and that we should share our experience for the benefit of others. Mrs Sythe’s waters broke early in the morning but she never went into labour – we finally went to the hospital (even though labour had not started) in the late afternoon to get checked up – when your water breaks you are on the clock for risk of infection, you can’t just leave it forever. We were admitted to a standard birthing suite, which has ensuite shower and toilet, a bed with a fold out grey torture device that’s apparently a bed, and there is a TV showing illegal Dish TV Indian satellite tv channels on it. As far as rooms go at a hospital it’s actually quite nice – A word to the men though – bring a pillow or two for that horrible grey bed thing. After some time the duty midwife, a South African lady called Denise, came in to see us. She had just come right from the delivery room and had blood all over her which was a bit grizzly, but she knew we’d been waiting for quite a while and wanted to check on us before fully cleaning herself up. She was very knowledgeable and helped put us at ease and said she would call the doctor to come and check Mrs Sythe to see whats up (we still didn’t know if Mrs Sythe’s water had actually broken or not at this point). And then it happened. Dr Bindu walked in – our Dr was away on vacation – she had told us about her vacation weeks before! Dr Bindu conducted a simple test and confirmed that the waters had indeed broken and then said she needed to carry out another test. Now, I am not a healthcare professional, and perhaps I am wrong in my thoughts here, but I think my wife was assaulted by the Dr. We never made a formal complaint because, well, we had our hands full the next day with a brand new baby and simply didn’t have the time. I’m not saying that this was an actual assault, but that’s what it felt like to Mrs Sythe. Here’s what happened: The Dr needed to check Mrs Sythe’s cervix, and without dressing it up too much, basically fisted her. Her nails cut her down there, and when she started crying, incredulously, Dr Bindu laughed and said to her, “well how do you expect to have a baby”? And then said to the midwife that the cervix was unfavorable (I later found out that meant unfavorable for inducing). That’s right. A Dr did that to my wife, and then laughed at her. We’re not really sure what to think because we’ve asked other medical professionals and some people say that this test the Dr did should have been done using a tool (speculum), and others say that it’s normal just to put their hand in. The real insult for us is the fact that this Dr laughed at us, at one of the most terrifying times of our lives together – we were not expecting to give birth for another 3 weeks and things were not exactly going normally. And so we had an emergency C-Section (which cost RO 1350) which was scheduled a few hours later. We met with the anesthesiologist, who explained that he was going to administer an epidural in the procedure. Other than that we just waited in our suite until it was time. Soon it was time for the main event, I was shown some scrubs and some sterilized shoes to wear and was led to a waiting room while Mrs Sythe was wheeled into the operating theatre. I was told someone would be out to get me in 5 minutes so I could join them all in the operating theatre. 5 minutes passed, and then 10 minutes. Finally after about 15 minutes I went investigating and found someone who I got to tell me what was going on. The anaesthesiologist had tried – and failed – 4 times (!) to successfully give the epidural and so they were going to use a general anesthetic and put Mrs Sythe out completely. I was allowed in to reassure her, and then had to go back to the waiting room. A short while later, the new duty midwife, Binta, appeared holding the worlds cutest baby (I’m biased) and allowed me a few minutes of skin to skin contact with mini Sythe (Mrs Sythe was unconscious still) before taking her for measurements and checks. It has to be said that Binta and Denise were, and are, amazing people and were very helpful both during and after the birth, as were all the nurses on the maternity ward. We stayed at the hospital for 3 days, and went home with our brand new baby. Only to have to come back later that night because the baby was distressed and had been crying non-stop. When you leave the hospital they give you some information, along with 2 phone numbers to call in the event of something happening. On a Sunday at 6pm, we rang both numbers and both rang and rang until they cut off. That’s right, the emergency numbers we were given were not even answered. Not knowing what to do, we rang the duty midwife, who suggested we went to emergency with the baby, which we did. We turned up in emergency and the nurse asks: How old is the baby? We said… 3 days… and amazingly the nurse then said: so how many months is that? Uh…. 3 DAYS? So 3 months then? No, 3 DAYS. We got in to see the duty Dr, who was clearly out of his depth. He asked what the problem was, we said… the baby won’t eat. He didn’t understand. Eventually I just grabbed mini Sythe and went upstairs to the maternity ward and found a nurse and got some help. The reason for sharing this particular part is to warn you, as can probably be expected: emergency room staff are clueless (and fair enough too) when it comes to newborn babies. The tale continues; over the next week or so, we had to return to the hospital a further 2 times because we noticed mini Sythe was getting jaundiced, only to be told “shes quite yellow, see you later” each time. At our 2 week follow up appointment with the Paediatrician, Dr Askar, he ordered a blood test to check the level of jaundice, which was very high and subsequently we had to spend 24 hours under UV lamps back at the hospital - which did the trick and cleared up the jaundice. And here’s the final straw: when leaving the hospital the next day, after the UV treatment had been completed, the Dr told us he wanted to have a follow up with us a few days later, and was sitting at the nurse station with me when I was making the appointment with a duty nurse, it was at 8pm on a work night a few days later. A few days later, we drove to the hospital for our follow up appointment and went to the main registration desk to report in. This is where we swore never to use Starcare ever again. It transpired that Dr Askar was “not coming to the hospital for 2 weeks”. No one had called us, no one had informed us, and thus we had a sick baby and had arrived for our follow up appointment and no one at the hospital could help. That was it. The hours and hours and hours of waiting for Dr appointments, the Dr laughing at us, the 4 failed attempts to give an epidural and now this total failure to inform us that our Dr was “not coming” for 2 weeks. That was it, I got a full medical note history for mini Sythe printed up and left Starcare, hopefully never to return. All I can do is share our experience here so that anyone who reads this who is expecting a baby can know. Forewarned is forearmed after all. Many people have had great experiences at Starcare – and yes their regular Dr’s and emergency treatment is actually pretty good, but for us, we wish we had never bothered and had just gone to Muscat Private Hospital to have our baby here. One final note on Starcare is this: Mothers who have their babies via C-Section there - be careful when you leave, because the parking lot is uneven and it's a pretty painful ordeal just to drive out of the parking lot and onto a level road! Hopefully this information is of use to someone, and if you've had a good or bad experience with Starcare then please share it here too so others can benefit from it.