A 60-YEAR LEGACY OF CARING FOR UAE
Ensconced in the leafy oasis of Al Ain, the Kanad Hospital was set up in 1960 by Dr Burwell and Dr Marian Kennedy (pictured). From its humble roots, it still remains a firm favourite for residents.
The UAE’s journey is five decades long, yet its oldest operating hospital dates back to before its formation. Ensconced in the leafy oasis of Al Ain, the Kanad Hospital is still a firm favourite for residents of the eastern Abu Dhabi region.
Its history is rich and heartwarming, and among its key distinctions is its status as the birthplace of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, who was the 12th baby to be delivered there.
Speaking to Gulf News , Dr Timothy Fincher, the hospital’s chief executive officer, traced the journey of the facility, from welcoming 67 babies in its first year or so of operation to 3,800 babies in 2020. “It truly is a phenomenal story, and it starts with the Abu Dhabi’s leadership looking for better care for the community,” Fincher said.
Search for health care
According to him, the late Sheikh Shakhbout Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi ruler from 1928-1966, and the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE’s founding father and Abu Dhabi ruler from 1966 until his death, had experienced good health care in the neighbouring lands of Oman and Bahrain.
“A number of Christian health providers were already treating patients there, and the two Abu Dhabi leaders asked around for physicians who would come down to Abu Dhabi. It was based on this request that Dr Burwell Kennedy, popularly known as Pat, and his wife, Dr Marian Kennedy, came down to Al Ain in March 1960 for a visit,” Dr Fincher said.
Having completed their medical training in Philadelphia, the physicians had previously worked in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine’s West Bank. Abu Dhabi’s leadership therefore asked them to set up a hospital in the emirate.
Basic facility in 1960
The Oasis Hospital, as it was then known, was therefore established in November 1960. Records show that this basic facility, was the first and only hospital in Abu Dhabi Emirate at the time, even though Dubai’s first hospital, Al Maktoum Hospital, had been set up in 1951. It took till the late 1960s for a government hospital to be opened in Abu Dhabi Emirate.
The first hospital was essentially a four-room clinic housed in a guesthouse donated by Shaikh Zayed. As soon as the health facility was created in
November, the physicians found hundreds of residents seeking their care. Two children were born by the end of the year, with 67 babies delivered by the end of the following year.
First royal birth
“Shaikh Mohammad was born in 1961, and we have this record in our oldest files. It is such an honour for us,” Dr Fincher said.
When heavy rains destroyed the first health quarters in 1963, the hospital was moved to eight new prefabricated rooms made of palm branches and corrugated aluminium. When these were destroyed in a fire a few months later, the hospital moved to a 20-room concrete structure at the site of the current facility in Al Muwaiji area.
Over time, more medical professionals came down to Oasis Hospital, and the hospital grew to include up to 30 staff members by the last 1970s.
In 1990, the hospital moved to a 36-bed building structure, and introduced more medical specialities for the community. Further expansions were completed in 2015, and a brand new majlis was added in 2015, built as a replica of the original 1960s majlis.
It truly is a phenomenal story, and it starts with the Abu Dhabi’s leadership looking for better care for the community.”
Renaming
Four years later, the name of the hospital was changed under the directors of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed from Oasis to Kanad Hospital, in order to honour the Kennedys. “The locals have always called us Mustashfa Kanad, and so this change actually aligned the official name of the facility to what it was always known,” Dr Fincher said.
The hospital is today managed by True Sojourners, a non-profit organisation which took over operations in 2020. It boasts 700 staff members and 78 physicians.
Dr Timothy Fincher | CEO of Kanad Hospital