UAE-Israel Business Leaders Summit: UAE's chance to capture Middle East's medical tourism
Region's 1b population provides ample opportunities that can be tapped into
There is a huge opportunity for the UAE in tapping medical tourism from the Middle East with its one billion population, according to Dr. Azad Moopen, founder of UAE’s Aster DM Healthcare, at the UAE-Israel Business Leaders Summit. "We have that opportunity to get patients here - and I see significant opportunity for doctors from Israel to come here and operate," he said while speaking at the three-day event co-hosted by Gulf News and TheMarker.
"They could also train the medical professionals here in techniques that are not routinely performed. Complex procedures like lung transplant are performed very rarely in the UAE and that needs to change."
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Collaborations
“We believe the children are above and beyond any politics, any war,” said Efrat Harlev, CEO, Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel. “This is really a situation to use these peaceful times in order to do much collaboration between our two people in all the different fields of pediatrics”
Moopen echoed Harlev’s sentiment. “There is a significant opportunity in all the areas… especially in areas like pediatrics. There are some UAE hospitals specialized in child care, but they are not at the same level as their Israeli counterparts."
Digitization the key
“There is again significant opportunity in areas like digital health - starting from a simple telemedicine consultation to tele ICU." With over 1,500 healthcare-related startups in Israel, “there will definitely be a lot of things which can be tested here (in UAE) as well as tried and adopted here.”