DHA to improve healthcare centres

The Dubai Health Authority is focusing on developing primary healthcare centres, which is among a number of future projects for the emirate. Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director-General of the authority, said, “Primary healthcare is frontline healthcare for the population. We have recently acquired land in Jumeirah to build a state-of-the-art primary healthcare centre (PHC). “We will close down the Umm Suqeim PHC because it is one of the oldest and is very small in size. In its place, we will build a much bigger facility in Jumeirah. The construction of this centre will begin in December 2012,” he said at the opening of the Hospital Build & Infrastructure Middle East Exhibition & Congress, which got underway on Monday. “In 2013, we will also begin construction of another primary healthcare centre in Al Warqa area.” The DHA presently has 14 PHCs. Meanwhile, the new Dubai Diabetes Centre won the award for the Best Physical Environment at the congress which was officially inaugurated by Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al Owais, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development and Acting Minister of Health. The Dubai Diabetes Centre represents a unique example of a friendly physical environment for adult and paediatric patients who shall visit the clinic. Al Murooshid highlighted that the new centre will have a paediatric endocrinology facility. The construction of the new centre, which is located on 2nd December street, is completed and will be operational by mid-August this year. Once operational, the existing diabetes centre on the Latifa Hospital premises will be shut down and the new centre will cater to all existing and new diabetic patients. The new centre is almost four times the size of the current centre, is double in terms of capacity and will have a kid-friendly play area and a gym with exercise physiologists, among other facilities.