Govt hospitals in Dubai to outsource care of in-patients during disasters: paper.

DUBAI, Apr. 11th. 2008: Treatment for patients admitted to government hospitals for immediate and long-term care will be outsourced to private facilities during disasters or calamities to overcome bed occupancy issues, reported a local UAE paper.

The Dubai government at present had 60 per cent control over the services provided to patients who need critical care, a senior health official from the Dubai Health Authority was quoted by the Khaleej Times as saying.

Dr Moin Fikree, Consultant Emergency Physician and Clinical Director of the Accident and Emergency Trauma Centre, said at least 70 per cent of these services will be taken over by the private sector in future as part of the Dubai Health Authority's National Disaster Management Plan ?Vision 2015?.

The government, he said, aims at reducing its burden of patients requiring intermediate to long-term stay in hospitals and bringing it to a 25-30 per cent level,? he said, explaining that the resources of private hospitals could prove to be an asset to the National Disaster and Emergency Response programme.

Hospitals, he added, such as the Rashid Hospital Emergency and Trauma Centre would then only concentrate on emergency and critical cases.

?Private hospitals are developing facilities to this end while government hospitals are cutting down on such services so as to outsource them to private facilities. ?Dubai is also in the process of entering into contracts with private facilities to shift patients to the latter in the event of a mass disaster,? noted Fikree.

According to Fikree, 90-95 per cent of admissions in the trauma centre were emergency cases with 80-90 per cent of beds being occupied for the same.