The majority of VPS’s facilities are in the GCC, including the flagship Burjeel Hospital in Abu Dhabi. The firm is also developing a $1.5bn expansion at Mohammed Bin Zayed City, a tertiary-care complex that will be the UAE’s largest private healthcare provider when it opens in 2017. It also has developments underway in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

In the past year, VPS Healthcare has acquired four hospitals in India, including three in the capital New Delhi.

In April 2016, VPS Healthcare acquired a majority stake in a 350-bed hospital in Kochi, now called VPS Lakeshore Hospital. Three months later, the medical firm acquired New-Delhi based Rockland Hospitals, including three facilities.

In a statement last year, Dr Shamsheer, who said he has 100 percent ownership of the company, said VPS Healthcare planned to expand across the subcontinent over the next five years.

Still based in Abu Dhabi, where he earned his qualification as a radiologist, Dr Shamsheer is a member of the UAE Medical Council, which brings private and government healthcare stakeholders together to plan the industry’s growth both with physical healthcare assets and regulation. He has said he believes the UAE will become a world medical hub.

Last year, he was one of four members appointed to the newly established Kerala NRI Commission, which represents non-resident Indians. Fifty percent of its members live in the UAE. Dr Shamsheer has previously lobbied the Supreme Court in India to give NRIs voting rights, benefitting about 10 million Indians living in the Gulf.

As the director of the quasi-judicial body, he will take up issues such as fake recruitments and disputes over properties and investments.