Sunday, Nov 02, 2008

Gulf News

Dubai: A 5,000-capacity, one-stop residency medical fitness centre is likely to open within the next few weeks, hopefully ending the chaos following the announcement of new laws in July.

Officials from the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department (DNRD) will also have an office at the same centre for speedy processing of employment visas, Gulf News has learnt.

The UAE has barred municipality clinics and private medical centres from conducting medical fitness certification tests, required for residency and work visas.

The decision saw a decline in the number of medical centres allowed to conduct the tests from 14 to just 8 in Dubai, causing massive congestion at the designated medical centres and frustration among the applicants.

Maisa Al Bustani, director of medical fitness at the Department of Health and Medical Services (DOHMS), told Gulf News the new residency medical fitness centre was almost ready to open.

"It will likely be open before the end of the year, maybe well before it. We're at the finishing stages," she said. "We just need to test it. We don't want the system to collapse [when we open]," she added.

The centre will be located at Sonapur, in Al Ghusais, and will also house immigration officials to process visa applications quickly. DOHMS expects the centre to process 5,000 applications daily.

Medical centres under DOHMS are able to process only 700 applications per shift and a total of 3,000 daily. These centres include Satwa and Al Safa primary healthcare centres and Maktoum Hospital. With the opening of the new centre, the capacity will increase to 8,000 applications daily.

The new medical residency laws also added Hepatitis B to the deportable diseases list, which already includes HIV/AIDS and turberculosis.

Until the new centre becomes operative, lost days and hours have become part and parcel of the ordeal of undergoing the mandatory residency medical fitness tests.

The number of people coming in for medical tests per shift is far more than 700, as evident from the long queues. Many expatriates Gulf News met complained of long hours of waiting, with some fearing they may not get to do the test at all that day.

Ordeal

Puranprasad Gupta from Nepal, a cleaner at a telecommunications company, told Gulf News he had to wait for hours before he could join the queue at Satwa Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) for his medical fitness examination.

"I came here at 9am, but the place was already full. I couldn't get in the queue. I have to wait till 3pm. I can't get in before that," he said. He added he was tired of waiting in the hot, humid weather.

Dozens of people were in the same boat, arriving in the morning, only to be told later that the centre would not accommodate any more for that shift.

John Anthony, a construction worker from India, who had come with 20 others for the tests, told Gulf News: "We came at 11.30am, but there was no room. So we will have to wait until 3pm."

VIP tests service

Those who want to avoid long queues can avail the VIP tests service at Al Safa Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC), but for a price - the fee for one test being as high as Dh690.

Dr Ahmad Kalban, director of the Safa PHC, told Gulf News the centre received about 70 people daily. He added the centre was seeking to process the applications even faster.

"Maybe next week, we will have immigration officials at the centre. That way people will get their visas immediately [as] in three hours. Everything will be ready," Dr Kalban said.

Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.