Dubai Health Authority begins home visits for elderly
Dubai's elderly population can get comprehensive check-ups right from the comfort of their homes from now on thanks to a Dubai Health Authority (DHA)programme.
The home visits--the first of kits kind in Dubai-- to the elderly population of the emirate aims to improve the levels of care provided to them.
The programme is in line with the directives of Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, director-general of the DHA, to provide high quality and convenient healthcare services to the elderly.
"This will greatly reduce the need for the elderly population to visit hospitals, thus ensuring that their convenience is taken into consideration," said Dr Ahmed Kalban, chief executive officer of the Primary Healthcare Sector at the DHA.
The home care team will provide curative, preventative and rehabilitative nursing for the elderly in their homes. In November 2011, a pilot project was introduced focusing on Al Safa and Al Khawaneej health centres for the elderly population living in those areas.
A team of ten doctors from across various primary health centres and 13 nurses have been trained from May to December 2011 to ensure they provide excellent levels of geriatric care.
"We were pleased with the outcome of the project and realised there is a substantial demand for this service. Over the course of the next three months, we will extend this service across all our primary health care centres located in the Emirate," Dr Kalban said.
Once a request for a home visit is made, a team, composed of a geriatrician, physiotherapist, physiatrist, doctor and nurse, will come to assess the patient's condition and chalk out a care program for the patient. Every home visit is equivalent to a comprehensive health check and assessment done in any hospital in the emirate.
But more should be done in the future, Dr. Nahed Monsef, director of health affairs department at the DHA Primary Healthcare Sector said.
"There is a need to plan for the future and since the percentage of elderly population in the Emirate will increase over the coming years, we are putting our plans in place to ensure we provide them with the best possible services." Dr. Monsef said.
