The Dubai Health Authority (DHA), a government organisation overseeing the health system of Dubai, has announced that its hospitals and specialty centres received more than one million patients in 2014.

Dr Ahmad Bin Kalban, CEO of Hospital Services Sector at the Dubai Health Authority, said: “In 2014, the four DHA run hospitals and specialty centres received over one million patients.”

This is a substantial number and includes outpatients, accident and emergency cases, walk-in visits as well as admissions,” he said.

“Our aim is to serve the medical needs of the community in Dubai and to provide high-quality services across several specialties as well as to focus on certain specialised centres to ensure patients receive high-quality care across all fields of medicine in Dubai,” he added.
    
The total number of patients that visited Dubai, Rashid, Latifa and Hatta hospital as well as specialty centres including Dubai Diabetes Centre, Thalassemia Centre, Airport Medical Centre and Dubai Gynaecology Centre were 1,102,336, as reported by DHA.

Of this 35 per cent of the patients visited Dubai Hospital, 30 per cent visited Rashid Hospital, 16 per cent visited Latifa Hospital and 10 per cent visited Hatta Hospital, the remaining 9 per cent of patients visited the specialty centres, it added.

Bin Kalban said: “The total number of outpatient visits across these facilities were 596,953, number of accident and emergency cases were 4,24,880 and the remaining 80,503 were admissions.”

He added DHA will continue to expand its health services to keep up with population growth. The projects will enhance geographical access to healthcare. As per the DHA’s Health Strategy 2013-2025, DHA will build new hospitals and will have 40 primary healthcare centres by 2025.

Presently the expansion of the trauma centre is ongoing, 60 per cent of the expansion is complete and the centre will be ready in June 2015. The construction is taking place using the pre-engineering concept so that the Trauma Centre can carry on with serving the needs of patients without any interruption. The expansion will add 160 beds and will cost Dh161 million ($43.8 million).
    
Al Jalila Children’s Specialty hospital is another project that will be operational in 2015, it added. – TradeArabia News Service