In the same week that it was announced that publicly listed companies in the UAE must have at least one female director on the board, a Dubai-based hospital, which is celebrating an eventful first year in operation, is flying the flag for diversity in the country.
Gargash Hospital, on Umm Suqeim Street, is the UAE’s first Emirati female-owned, multi-specialty, tertiary care hospital, with a primary focus on women and childcare.
Founded by Dr Husnia Gargash, the hospital boasts a female staff of around 67 percent, while women make up 80 percent of the hospital’s upper management.
The CEO, Ghada Sawalmah, daughter of Dr Gargash, told Arabian Business: “We wanted to give women a chance. I feel sometimes female doctors or female staff can be overlooked, especially in a society which is very family-oriented which ours is, where they think, she’s going to have a family, she’s not going to give that much commitment to the entity, which is not true. In fact, I have seen them work even harder because they have something to prove, not only to the facility or to the chance that they’ve been given, but also to themselves.
“But also it just made sense. As we are a mother and child hospital, it made sense to have that empathy and compassion that comes from a female management.”
On Monday it was announced that stock markets in Dubai and Abu Dhabi will require at least one female director on the boards of all listed companies, in a move aimed at empowering Emirati women and encouraging them to play a great role in the boardroom, according to a statement from the Securities and Commodities Authority.
The five biggest companies listed on Dubai Financial Market PJSC and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange have 84 board members, of which only three are women, according to data on the exchange websites.
Sawalmah said: “In my family, we don’t really have that sexism or confusion as to why there is a woman in this position of power. Dr Gargash is the first female Emirati gynaecologist and IVF specialist in the UAE.”
Ghada Sawalmah, CEO of Gargash Hospital.
“For us it was never something shocking to see a woman go up. You have to go up on merit. I think it’s very good to have this regulation in place because women do have something to prove – 50 percent of the population is women, why are we cutting off a whole chunk of society, and their input, to satisfy our own comforts.”
The Gargash Hospital in Dubai enjoyed a soft launch in September 2019, with a grand opening planned for March last year. However, Sawlamah explained that, this was shelved with the sudden onset of COVID-19 pandemic and the hospital got busy assisting the DHA in treating COVID-19 patients through until June.
“It was a very steep learning curve because everything changed. The needs changed, the patient-flow management changed,” she said.
The 50-bed unit, which includes 38 in-patient rooms, is the first hospital in the UAE to have a fully-fledged IVF unit, with its own operating theatre, its own pre-operative, post-operative, clinics and lab.
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