UNITED ArAB EMIrATES
Doing Business in the United Arab Emirates
Healthcare and pharmaceuticals: Healthcare investment The government is encouraging investment to enable the private sector to play a more significant role in providing health services. Healthcare in the UAE remains a focus of investment with a number of government and private initiatives. SEHA, the health services company that operates government hospitals and clinics in Abu Dhabi, is funding a DH multibillion project to replace Al Mafraq Hospital. The new hospital, a state-of-the-art facility to secure Mafraq Hospital's position as a leading trauma and surgery hospital, is opening this year (2015). SEHA has also funded the groundbreaking and awardwinning new Al Ain Hospital, in Al Ain city, due to open shortly. The Ajman Health Zone and the MoH embarked on an AED 500 million expansion project involving Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Hospital and the creation of a number of primary health centres, a diabetes and obesity centre and a medical fitness centre. Umm al-Qaiwain Hospital has also undergone a revamp costing more than AED 400 million, and the new 400-bed Jebel Ali Trauma and Emergency Centre in Dubai opened in 2010. In addition the 200-bed Al Jalila Children's Specialty Hospital in Dubai has been built and opened in 2011. Mubadala Healthcare, part of the Abu Dhabi government-owned Mubadala Development Company, launched the first part of its major pathology laboratory project in Dubai in December 2009. Its hub in Abu Dhabi opened in 2010 and has had a dramatic effect on services.
The National Reference Laboratory is the first of its kind in the region and tests a large number and variety of samples that in the past were sent abroad, thereby reducing waiting times for results and costs to local healthcare providers. The UAE provides a high level of specialised health care at its medical facilities, including open-heart surgery and organ transplantation. Many of the new hospitals, public and private, offer advanced techniques such as ‘keyhole’, or minimally invasive, surgery, and interventional radiology. Until recently, these procedures were only available abroad. Despite these major strides and the fact that the Ministry of Health's (MoH) budget has increased each year at an average of 4.5%, there is ever-increasing pressure on the country's healthcare services. This is primarily due to the unprecedented growth in population, but other factors come into play, such as the burgeoning cost of technology. Another is that the role of the private sector has been limited to-date. Furthermore, expatriates were also entitled to use MoH facilities for minimal fees on production of a health card which used to cost as little as AED 300 (US$82) per year. This put a heavy burden on public healthcare and prevented the development of private facilities. The introduction of compulsory health insurance was considered to be the best way forward, ultimately leading to more cost-effective and efficient services.
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