As part of its modernization plans, Malé Health Services Corporation is expanding its senior management team with three highly skilled health professionals from UK. They will support the Managing Director and the Board of MHSC in augmenting their health transformation agenda, accelerating quality improvements and rigorously honing cost efficiency.

They have been recruited as volunteers with the assistance of 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. The three volunteers will initially come for one year, extendable to two years, and will leave a lasting, positive legacy within MHSC, through the local leaders they will personally develop.

Cathy Waters will start as the new General Manager of IGMH at the beginning of February. She has 17 years of senior health management experience, including 8 years as Chief Executive in the UK’s National Health Service, demonstrating exemplary management of staff, personnel issues and substantial budgets in the face of major financial challenges. She has also worked effectively as a senior management consultant, achieving organizational 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. Cathy 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. She has a Nursing Degree, a Masters in Public Health and a postgraduate certificate in Global Development Management, and “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, before starting in earnest in July, when he retires early from his Consultant Paediatrician post to take up this challenging role. He 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.