The American Mission Hospital is a 120 year old private not-for-profit hospital located in Manama, Bahrain.
Established in 1903, as the Mason Memorial Hospital, it was the first modern hospital in the country and, possibly, along the entire Persian Gulf region. The hospital offers specialist medical, dental, and wellness services from its main branch in Manama, and from its branches or satellite clinics in the country, located at Saar, Amwaj Islands and Riffa.
Coinciding with its 120th anniversary, a fifth and the largest branch, King Hamad American Mission Hospital, was opened in A'Ali on 26 January 2023. It started receiving patients at the new branch, from March 2023.
History The origins of the hospital can be traced back to 1889, when Arabian Mission, a Christian mission service organization, was established by graduating students of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, which was run by the Dutch Reformed Church, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The articles of association were signed in New York in August 1889, and the organization began formally with eight trustees and two graduates missionaries, Samuel Zwemer and James Cantine.
These two founders of the Arabian Mission went through intensive Arabic language training in Beirut, Lebanon, during 1890–1892, before they embarked on their work. James Cantine went to Basrah in Mesopotamia, in August 1892, and immediately started building a school and a hospital there, while Zwemer traveled to Bahrain.
Zwemer landed on the shores of Bahrain on 7 December 1892 and started a medical dispensary. In 1895, during one of his periodic visits to Baghdad, he met an Australian missionary nurse, Amy Wilkes, and they soon got engaged. The following year, on 18 May 1896, they were married at the British consulate, in Baghdad, by one Rev. Canon Parfit.
After Zwemer came back to Bahrain with his bride, the now husband-wife team continued to run the clinic, dispensary, and bookshop, all from a rented house in Manama souq. Later, they moved to a mission house, from where they initiated some basic medical services. It was a precursor to the establishment of the hospital.
The first Western-trained resident doctors, Sharon J Thoms and Marion Wells Thoms, a husband-and-wife team, both medical graduates of the University of Michigan, arrived in 1900. And they - with the Zwemers - decided to find a place to build a hospital.
In 1901, the then Hakim of Bahrain Isa ibn Ali Al Khalifa helped them purchase land for the construction of a hospital complex to replace the mission house. Then, with sufficient donations from one Mason family in New York, the mission constructed the 24-bed Mason Memorial Hospital in 1902. It was officially opened on 26 January 1903.
Soon after the hospital opened, it began to attract thousands of patients from across the Gulf; from places like Qatif, al-Hasa, Oman, Qatar, Najd and Bushire.
Even though another hospital, in memory of Queen Victoria who died in 1901, was set up by the British in 1905, on the requests and donations of some Hindu merchants in Bahrain, it was not consistent in its functioning. The Victoria Memorial Hospital (Bahrain) was often short of staff and it is recorded that the patients were sent to the Mission Hospital.
By 1924, the mission hospital was having 33,000 outpatients and 600 inpatients a year, with an average of 100 patients being treated a day. Throughout the hospital's history, the majority of healthcare workers in the hospital were employed from Western countries or India although many Bahrainis were also recruited and trained in the medical sciences.
In 1927, seeing the growing need for a separate facility for women alone, and for children, the Arabian Mission raised funds and then, the Marion Wells Thoms Memorial Hospital for Women and Children was opened, in addition to the Mason Memorial Hospital. It was named after Dr Marion Wells Thoms, who had died of typhoid in 1905.
In 1962, the hospital expanded by opening two new buildings in central Manama and renamed itself the 'American Mission Hospital' that same year. The expansion was opened by the Emir of Bahrain Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa. On the brink of closing in the 1980s, the hospital revamped its services by offering 24-hour services, opening new specialised ENT and orthopaedic clinics.
In 2000, the hospital opened its first satellite clinic in Saar, on the western side of Bahrain, offering dental and medical services. The same year, a bridge connecting two hospital buildings across the busy Isa Al Kabeer road in Manama was opened.
In 2014, another clinic was opened in Amwaj Islands, to the northeast of Manama. In March 2018, yet another clinic was opened in Riffa.
With growing demand in Saar, the hospital services are being offered, since 2016, from a larger purpose-renovated building in Saar, very close to the old location. In 2018, a new Zwemer Clinic was also opened, in the main Manama branch premises, on 5 March, to cater to those in the low income groups with financial needs.
The hospital's staff accommodation was also upgraded in 2019, when a new apartment complex was built for the staff.
In 2023, on January 26, the fifth and the largest facility, King Hamad American Mission Hospital, opened in A'Ali.
Leaders In the late 1890s, the sick and injured were being served from Samuel Zwemer's dispensary, and later, from the mission house where the Zwemers stayed. But, the need for a proper hospital with well-trained doctors was growing fast. And Zwemer's plea, to the Arabian Mission, for a full medical appointment, finally paid off at the end of the nineteenth century, with the arrival of Dr Sharon J Thoms, who became the hospital's first leader, or the Chief Medical Officer.
On the very first day of his arrival, Dr Sharon Thoms had to treat a pearl diver attacked by a shark. The patient was brought in with one of his arms very badly mangled, while the other was completely bitten off, below the elbow. That arm had to be amputated with anaesthetic administered, an advancement in medical technology which was very new to Bahrain then. And the cutting of bone, stitching of skin, and dressing of this man's stump, while men around him were fainting – as they saw the procedure – was Dr Thoms' official initiation into medical and surgical work in Bahrain.
It was something that Dr Thoms was completely unprepared for. But it was under his leadership that work began for the new hospital building, and the Mason Memorial Hospital opened two years later.
Referring to the incident, Dr Thoms had written: "The patient's father and brothers did not return from the pearl banks until several days afterward, and one morning they all came to the dispensary with the patient. The whole family showed signs of gratitude, but the father weeping covered my hands with kisses and my head with blessings" (Field Reports and Quarterly Letters from the Arabian Mission, July–Sep 1900, No.35, Page 6).
+ List of Chief Medical Officers / chief executive officers S.No Years served Name Term 1 1902–1909 Dr. Sharon J Thoms – 2 1909–1912 Dr. C Stanley G Mylrea – 3 1914–1922 Dr. Paul W. Harrison First Term 4 1922–1936 Dr. Louis P Dame – 5 1937–1941 Dr. W. Harold Storm First Term 6 1941–1948 Dr. Paul W. Harrison Second Term 7 1948–1964 Dr. W. Harold Storm Second Term 8 1965–1966 Dr. Donald T Bosch – 9 1967–1980 Dr. Alfred G Pennings – 10 1980–1984 Dr. Jack W Hill – 11 1984–1987 Dr. J Ted Herbelin – 12 1988–2009 Dr. Paul Armerding – 13 2009 – Dr. George Cheriyan –
Sources: AMH Archives, Changing Scenes book by Angela Clarke,.
The hospital has placed the pictures of all the past Chief Medical Officers, who served over the last hundred years, with their names and tenures, on a wall in its main Manama branch, near its ENT Department.
In 2017, as a part of its strategic development goals, the hospital's board of directors, representing the Reformed Church in America, reorganized senior leadership positions. The board named Dr George Cheriyan as the corporate CEO and member of the board of directors, and it named Julia Tovey as the group CEO, the first female to hold this leadership position in the hospital's almost 120-year history.
Books For nearly a century, much of what happened in the various stations of the Arabian Mission, including in the Bahrain station, was regularly and meticulously recorded. All the reports of missionaries are now available in the archives of the Reformed Church of America and in the volumes of Neglected Arabia 1902–1949 and Arabia Calling 1949–1962.
Some chief medical officers, doctors, and other staff have also written books on their experiences at the American Mission Hospital of Bahrain, and on other matters, of their personal interests. Some of those books are listed below.
History of the Arabian Mission by Alfred DeWitt and Mason and Frederick J. Barny, 1926, Board of Foreign Missions, Reformed Church of America, New York. Doctor in Arabia by Paul W Harrison, MD, 1940, First edition, Van Rees Press, New York, ASIN B000PS29SI Kuwait Before Oil: Memoirs of Dr. C. Stanley G. Mylrea, Contributors : C. Stanley G. Mylrea, Samuel Marinus Zwemer, Mrs. John Van Ess, Mrs. Abbe Livingston Warnshuis, of the Arabian Mission, Published in 1951. A Tool in His Hand (Hardcover) by Ann M. Harrison, 1958, First Edition, Friendship Press, New York. ASIN : B000NXFAX6 My Arabian Days and Nights: A Medical Missionary in Old Kuwait by Dr Eleanor T. Calverley, MD, First Edition (Hardcover), 1958, Thomas Y Crowell Company, New York ASIN: B000J0XROW A Life and Times ( Biography of William Harold Storm, MD) by Janet Mabel Storm Pengelley, 2005, First ed., Perth: Pengelly, Doctors for the Kingdom by Paul L Armerding, 2003, (First ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co. . Transitions: In Mission, In Medicine, In Bahrain by Corrine Overkamp MD, FACP, First Edition, 2011, The archives of the Reformed Church of America – Missionary Resources, New Jersey. , ASIN B009AOKRNW Seashells of Oman by Donald Bosch and Eloise Bosch. The husband and wife were also reputed conchologists who collected and catalogued seashells, and some shells or marine molluscs are named after them Seashells of Eastern Arabia by Donald Bosch, R.G. Moolenbeek & P. Graham Oliver, edited by Peter Dance
Departments According to the hospital's website, it is currently offering its services through the following departments :
**Zwemer Clinic in Manama is for the low-income workers. It is also the only place in Manama where Pre Employment Check is done.
Awards In May 2020, the hospital achieved first place in two categories of Business Worldwide Magazine (BWM) 2020 GCC Business Excellence Awards. Best Private Non-profit Healthcare Provider – GCC and 'Business Leadership and Outstanding Contribution to Healthcare – GCC', which was won by Group CEO Julia Maria Tovey.
Dr George Cheriyan, the corporate CEO of AMH, was listed among the winners in the CEO Today Middle East Awards of 2020 and 2021, by the CEO Today magazine.
In 2015, AMH was listed among the best hospitals in the Arabian Gulf region by the International Socrates Committee based in Oxford, England. That year, Dr George Cheriyan was also announced as the 'Manager of the Year' for the region.
On 10 August 2023, CMC Vellore invited Dr George Cheriyan, the CEO of AMH to give the 12th Annual Dr. Ida S. Scudder Humanitarian Oration, and presented him with a citation and award, for his work.
Accreditations In 2017, the main branch in Manama and the satellite branches in Saar and Amwaj Islands have been awarded Diamond status – the highest level of accreditation given to hospitals by the National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) of Bahrain. The accreditation is awarded, after NHRA's assessment, once, every three years.
The Diamond Status was re-affirmed in April 2021 when, once again, all the three locations were reviewed and re-accredited by NHRA.