Dubai: Hospitality and hospitals come together from this month onwards as Dubai implements its ambitious medical tourism policy to become one of the leading global medical tourism hubs. The ambitious policy, when fully implemented, will see Dubai targeting at least 500,000 tourists a year by 2020. But even before that milestone, by 2016, medical tourists to Dubai are expected to rise to 170,000 and revenues to Dh1.1 billion.

By 2020, along with the target of 500,000 tourists, the revenue expected to be generated is Dh2.6 billion.

As is the practice with Dubai, that follows its goals with systematic discipline, its initial aim is to generate revenue that will account for 3-5 per cent of its annual GDP and an increase in 12-15 per cent revenue from medical tourism. The current international trend for most leading countries is 15 per cent of the revenue annually.

“Dubai is already known for excellence in some medical areas and we have patients from many countries visiting us, specifically on health-related travel,” says Dr Ramadan Ebrahim, director of the health regulation authority and medical tourism department at the Dubai Health Authority (DHA).

“Our city has excellent infrastructure and the flow of medical tourists was bound to increase by default. Taking a cue from that, we decided to streamline the medical facilities and focus on bringing the best facilities to our visitors.”

Dr Ebrahim is certain about one thing — Dubai is determined to change the way hospitals are perceived. “Hospitals should not be dull and boring places where patients and relatives waste monumental time in queues,” he says. “We will make arrangements to entertain patients while they wait for appointments, help them make better use of their time and also help them electronically track the movement of the queue they are in on large screens.

“We will set up special fast-track systems for those who come in for a wellness or medical check-up so that they do not have to be part of the regular patients reporting for illness or surgery at the hospital,” he adds.

The idea is to revolutionise the image of hospitals and make them places where wellness is a core experience. The two concepts of hospitality and hospitals do not, however, necessarily have a connection despite the similar spelling. But Dubai is set to change that. “We are looking to change the culture at hospitals and link it to hospitality that is at the core of our Emirati culture.” And to achieve this, Dr Ebrahim says, they are in the process of brainstorming “to make hospital stay memorable for patients and let Dubai be known for its top-class health care facilities”.

Currently, Dubai does enjoy a sizeable number of medical tourists from Eastern Europe, Russia and Africa who come here for various medical procedures ranging from dentistry to state-of-the art cosmetic procedures. The new policy will streamline all aspects of the influx of patients and formally create a new system that is efficient and organised.

The nuts and bolts of medical tourism

The details of the new push for medical tourism will be announced during the first Health Regulations Conference in Dubai which will take place on October 22-23. Dr Ebrahim outlined the major features of the medical tourism policy which will be implemented in two phases. The first phase begins from October 22, 2014 until 2016. The second phase is from 2016 to 2020.

The architects of the policy plan to work closely with many departments like Emirates Holidays, Dubai immigration, Department of Commerce Tourism and Marketing (DTCM), hotels and other stakeholders to give a health spin to regular tourist packages.

The treatments covered

The current focus is on seven areas of treatment such as dermatology, dental procedures, preventive health check-ups, plastic surgery, orthopaedics and ophthalmology which usually require short visits and work out ideally for short-stay visas. Eventually, there are plans to have long-term visas for patients looking for longer treatments at university hospitals and for teaching purposes and so on.

Outlining the working of the system, Dr Ebrahim explains: “Our packages — which will include the cost of the treatment, the hospital stay, the visa charges, etc — will be sold by tour operators and will target the domestic segment and the overseas tourist. After all, many patients travel to Thailand, Singapore, US and UK from Dubai for medical treatment; we intend to give them tailor-made packages and attract that revenue.

“For tourists, the package will include hotel stay and flight tickets. For residents, it will offer discounted rates for certain medical services. Just as airlines have economy, business and first class, we will introduce a system of grading for hospitals as well with different kinds of packages for different kinds of income groups. People look for star ratings in hotels so also certain criteria such as reception, transport, translation services, treatments available, the kind of super specialities offered will also go into deciding the rating a hospital will be granted. That will be a ready reckoner for a medical tourist.”

How can residents pick their medical treatment packages?

Health insurance, which is now going to be a mandatory feature for all residents, will come to the aid of the domestic sector in giving residents options depending on their premiums. However, residents will have a choice to opt for a premium package that is not covered under their insurance as well. The packages are comprehensive and extremely convenient,” said Dr Ebrahim, who feels their immediate clients would be not only residents but also people from GCC and the Middle East.

Implementation in phases

In the first phase, the authorities intend to roll out packages for wellness and health check-ups. As more and more people adopt a wellness lifestyle, travel agents can expect to see an increase in the number of clients who want to incorporate wellness into their trip plans. This is a fast-growing field in the tourism sector, says Dr Ebrahim. “Our goal is to attract medical travel where people exclusively travel for medical treatment and not just medical tourism where tourists think of including some medical check-up as part of their trip,” he added.

In other words, Dubai wants to encourage people from other parts of the world to travel here exclusively for medical treatments rather than visit the UAE for other purposes and opt for medical check-ups during their stay here.

While facilities and amenities are being enhanced to make a visit to hospitals memorable, Dubai’s medical tourism will not just limit itself to this. Work is under way to ensure that excellence in medical care is provided with Canadian and US-board certified consultants and super speciality experts.

From October 12, all medical practitioners and health care experts have been granted a unified medical licence, making it easy for doctors to practise across the country. So, a doctor licensed from the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD) or the Ministry of Health or DHA will be able to ply his trade anywhere in the UAE with due permissions. This is an excellent step forward in expanding the field of operations for professionals even as it presents great opportunities for patients to pick from a range of expertise on offer under convenient circumstances. It is a win-win situation for all.

Currently, the total number of health-care facilities in Dubai stands at 2,518 and more than 70 per cent of hospitals here have international accreditation. All these figures reinforce the decision of people who make Dubai their choice of medical destination.

At the moment, the medical tourism department is busy processing the results of scores of market research and analyses. Dubai’s medical tourism website will be launched soon and it will provide several hyperlinks to various medical and health resources the emirate has to offer.

As Dr Ebrahim puts it, “It’s a challenge. And we will make this happen.”