The Dubai Health Authority’s (DHA) six primary healthcare centres were recently reaccredited by the Arab Board Health Specializations Council’s  and three new centres received accreditation from the Council which means now nine centres in total can provide training and educational centres for family medicine specialists and Dubai residency program doctors.

The Arab Board represents 22 countries and the Arab Board Specialization is a highly recognised medical specialization.

This accreditation and reaccreditation reflects the high quality of services provided by these centres and allows family medicine specialists and Dubai residency program doctors to train  at DHA’s nine centres.

His Excellency Humaid Al Qatami, Chairman of the Board and Director-General of the DHA, said: “At the DHA, we consider primary healthcare to be frontline care and it is the first line of treatment and therefore education and training in this field is of vital importance as it is with all fields of medicine. This reaccreditation and the accreditation of newer centres highlights the high quality of services we provide at these centres and is an opportunity for us to provide training and education locally to our health professionals in the field of family medicine.”

Dr. Wadeia Mohammad, program director of the Family Medicine Dubai Residency Program, Primary Health Care Services Sector at the DHA, said the accredited centres provide medical services across various specialities including family medicine, material and childcare, geriatric care, preventive medicine, prenatal care, immunizations, urgent care and have support functions such as laboratories, radiology, pharmacy etc.

They also provide specialised outpatient services for the convenience of community members so that they have access to these services at centres close to their geographical areas.

The outpatient services include ophthalmology, ENT, dermatology, travellers clinics, home health care, diabetes clinic, asthma clinic etc.

The nine cenres also provide telemedicine services for retinal imaging to encourage early intervention and to send the reports directly to rental specialists at DHA hospitals to detect early on any retinal issues particularly those caused due to diabetes, given the high prevalence of diabetics in the country.

Dr Mohammad said the DHA received the accreditation due to the high quality of care the centres and due to the ongoing training facilities, they offer.

Dr Mohammad highlighted that the DHA introduced the Dubai residency-training program for family medicine in 1993 at three primary healthcare centres at DHA.  In 2006, the program received accreditation from the Royal College of General Practitioners in UK. 

So far, 138 medical residents have graduated from this programme, out of those 119 received a certification from the Arab Board.

In 2016, thirty-two residents took part in the exam and they were from UAE and Egypt.

Last week, the centres also received a JCI accreditation.

The centres that were reaccredited by the Arab Board of Health Specializations Council are : Al Mamzar, Al Twar, Al Safa, Al Mankhool, Al Badaa and Al Khawaneej and the newly accredited centres are: Al Mizhar, Al Barsha and Nad Al Hammar.