Dr Azad Moopen, Chairman Of Aster Dm Healthcare Group

 

A Highly Determined Medical Professional, who has Established impactful Healthcare Facilities & Services in India

Azad Moopen is an Indian physician and philanthropist, and developer of healthcare facilities in Asia-Pacific. He is the Chairman and Managing Director of Aster DM Healthcare -Healthcare Conglomerates in the Middle East and India founded in 1987. In 2010 and 2011, he was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman and Padma Shri by the Government of India.

Early Childhood

Azad Moopen was born in 1953 in an Indian village Kalpakancheri in the Malappuram district of Kerala. His family owned a bulk of the land in the area of Kalpakancheri, a part of Valluvanad in Southern Malabar. His father, Ahmed Unni Moopen, was involved in the freedom struggle during the 1940s. Azad Moopen passed the MBBS with a gold medal and an MD in general medicine from the Calicut Medical College, Kerala, and a diploma in chest disease from Delhi University.

Moopen’s Father, who added meaning to his life

A young Moopen was inspired by his father’s important standing in their village. A wealthy landlord, Ahmed Unni Moopen was a freedom fighter and philanthropist who had helped build the local hospital, school and post office. “People, including policemen, came to him to solve problems. I learnt decision-making from him,” says the son, who became a student leader in college and successfully campaigned against the government’s move to accord MBBS degree to homoeopathy doctors.

Moopen’s Father had been particular about two things — his youngest son must read Mathrubhoomi and The Hindu every morning, and he had to excel in mathematics. He should have all the makings of an entrepreneur, in effect. However, the decision to become a doctor had been an emotional one. The youngest of five brothers and two sisters, Moopen was barely 15 when his father passed away. He knew that his father had always wanted one of his children to become a doctor.

“He used to like the medical profession as one of my brothers-in-law was a doctor,” Moopen remembers. After obtaining his MD degree from Calicut Medical College, he became a lecturer there in 1982.

Journey Towards The Middle East

In 1982, he started his career at the Calicut Medical College, where he served as a Medical Lecturer for five years before moving to Dubai in 1987. There he started working as a single doctor practising at his own clinic. Moopen came to Dubai 31 years ago to raise money for the renovation of a mosque in his hometown, Kalpakancheri, in Malappuram district, Kerala. He needed 10 lakhs then, or Dh250,000 as per the currency exchange in 1987. The plan was just to collect the funds and return home. The intention was never to settle in the UAE.

When Azad Moopen went to Dubai in 1987, he wanted to accomplish two things — earn enough to build a palatial house and then bring back a ‘foreign’ car. A general physician, Moopen had been teaching at the Government Medical College, Kozhikode when he decided to take a five-year sabbatical. “I had gone to Dubai earlier in 1986, as part of a philanthropic mission to collect funds to build a mosque in my hometown in Kerala,” he recounts.

A senior from his college, who was practising in the Emirate, had convinced Moopen to move to Dubai for a career opportunity. “There was an option in the medical college to take leave without losing seniority. I took it, intending to return after five years,” says Moopen.

But he didn’t return. What started as his private clinic in 1987 gradually ballooned into one of the largest healthcare groups in West Asia and India?

Over the last 26 years, he established a chain of healthcare facilities in West Asia with 175 unit hospitals, polyclinics, pharmacies and diagnostic centres in UAE, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia.