Thursday, Jan 30, 2014
Dubai: Specialised health care centres will help establish a world-class health care system in Dubai, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain, Wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice-President of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said on the final day of the Arab Health Congress and Exhibition on Thursday.
Princess Haya is also chairperson of Dubai Healthcare City Authority.
In a keynote address, Princess Haya, however, cautioned that the specialised centres should not come at the cost of general health care. She outlined Shaikh Mohammad’s vision and strategy in making UAE a centre of excellence for medical education, research and world-class health care.
“By creating specialised centres, the substantial fixed investment required to provide services such as cardiac surgery or orthopaedic procedures have proven economical by consolidating volume that would have otherwise been allocated across multiple diversified facilities,” Princess Haya said. She cautioned that “specialisation does not mean lowering standards when it comes to general health care”.
She also called for proper medical needs assessment of the population. “A needs assessment would identify the most prevalent and highest incidence of diseases in the population, allowing us to concentrate our resources. No project should ever be allowed to proceed, wasting our precious resources without a detailed and proper needs assessment. We cannot afford to gamble with the health of our nation.”
The establishing of Al Jalila Foundation for medical education and research and the introduction of the health insurance cover for all residents are some of the steps in line with Shaikh Mohammad’s vision, Princess Haya said.
She mentioned the two-day national brainstorming session that Shaikh Mohammad presided over earlier this year to improve education and health care sectors. where issues such as early detection cancer centres, a national database for medical records, and strategies to tackle obesity with healthy lifestyles, was endorsed as continuation of this vision of medical excellence.
“By building speciality hospitals, health care workers are exposed to a number of patients with the illness in question, which otherwise maybe rarely seen by those individuals. With increased number of treatments comes early recognition of signs and symptoms, institution of early treatments, better-timed diagnostics and interventions as well as improved outcomes,” she said.
Princess Haya called on all partners and stakeholders in the health care industry to be prepared to run faster in the race for medical excellence and be willing to “go that extra mile” to be able to deliver their best.
By Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary Senior Writer
Gulf News 2014. All rights reserved.
