United Arab Emirates, Dubai, 15 April 2012: The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and the Dubai Healthcare City Authority (DHCA) recently signed an agreement which supports mutual recognition of medical licences for healthcare practitioners working in the Emirate of Dubai.
The cross recognition of licenses for healthcare professionals is subject to healthcare practitioners meeting certain agreed upon eligibility criteria. The aim is to provide convenience to healthcare professionals and facilitate movement of qualified talent pool in the health sector which will directly result in better patient care for the community.
The two regulatory bodies signed the agreement at Dubai Healthcare City in the presence of senior health officials, including HE Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority, HE Raja Al Gurg, Vice Chairperson of Dubai Healthcare City Authority, Dr Abdulkareem Al Olama, Executive Director of the Center for Healthcare Planning & Quality, and Dr. Ramadan Ibrahim, Director of Health Regulation at the DHA. The agreement highlights several initiatives that DHA and DHCA will champion in efforts to further enhance the healthcare provision system in the Dubai.
HE Raja Al Gurg said: “Our commitment to delivering quality healthcare in Dubai begins with attracting world-class professionals. This agreement, as signed by the DHCA and DHA, will reinforce the collaborative efforts between the two entities to better serve healthcare professionals and at the same time, reinforce their respective commitments towards the growth and development of the healthcare sector across the Emirate. This is, no doubt, a move in the right direction and I am confident that both entities will work together to further position Dubai as a center of excellence for quality healthcare.”
HE Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid said, “The move will significantly benefit the health sector in Dubai as healthcare practitioners who have a DHCA license and fulfil the eligibility criteria, can now easily apply for a license to practise in DHA and vice versa. This can be done through a simple registration process as both parties will recognise the existing license (DHA or DHCA) of healthcare professionals according to the agreed criteria. This means that they will be exempt from duplicating primary source verification and assessment and will only need to undertake a registration process.”
“The new procedure is hassle-free, cuts down the time to apply for both licenses (DHA and DHCA) by half and facilitates movement of healthcare professionals in the Emirate,” concluded HE Al Murooshid.
Dr Ramadan Ibrahim said, “At the DHA, it is our aim to ensure we provide healthcare practitioners and healthcare facilities with convenience and the simplification of medical licenses is a step in this direction. Recently, we have also signed a MoU with Health Authority Abu Dhabi (HAAD) for mutual recognition of licenses.
“We believe that mutual recognition of medical licenses will support healthcare professionals to practise medicine across different facilities and this is especially useful for highly qualified specialists whose services are in demand. At the end of the day, this adds value to the healthcare services we provide our population and visitors.”
Dr Abdulkareem Al Olama said: “The DHCA and DHA collaboration moves us one step further in our joint efforts to streamline healthcare regulations for the Emirate of Dubai to encourage healthcare investment by supporting healthcare providers with the ease of doing business. We will continue to work with Dubai Health Authority to further enhance the licensure offering to healthcare professionals.”
Dr. Ramadan added that presently there are 25,000 healthcare professionals in the private and government health sector in Dubai.