The Clinic and Medical Services Section of Dubai Municipality has started providing a number of e-services to simplify dealings with its customers.

The section issues a number of clinic health certificates using these e-services provided through the municipality website.

Dr Zuhoor Al Sabbagh, Head of the section, asked the customers to utilise the e-services offered through the website, which will save considerable time and effort.

She said the customer has to come to the clinic only once and submit his application with all the details in Arabic and English.

These details would be printed on the certificates in Arabic and English, which is in line with the rules of the Naturalisation and Immigration Department, whereas the rest of the information in the application form would be in English.

There are two types of Dubai Municipality Clinic Health Certificates – Medical Certificate and Occupational Health Card. This service serves companies in Dubai that apply for occupational health cards and medical certificates.

Examples of companies that require these certificates are hotels, nursery schools, and hair dressing salons - basically companies that deal directly with the public in Dubai as a part of their normal operations.

Zuhoor said the e-transactions were part of Dubai Municipality's vision to provide the best services to the public and also of the Public Health Department to simplify the procedures and facilitate easy steps for conducting the tests for the customers from inside and outside the section.

She said that the other speciality of the service is that it speeds up the application process as the date and timing for personal appearance can be decided online, which reduces the waiting time.

Dr Zuhoor said the system is also easy to use as well as for taking printouts of the application forms in bulk for the benefit of the companies with a large number of employees. They can also fill up two applications in a single go, on one form, to obtain a occupational health card and a medical certificate.

The Clinic and Medical Services Section announced that next year would see the introduction of e-clinic services, which uses paperless procedures, such as receiving the transactions and applications in a much faster time.

Zuhoor said that for the time being, the Section encourages the companies, hotels, and individuals to access the municipality website (www.dm.gov.ae) in order to avoid paper transactions.

The services provided by the Clinic and Medical Services Section include issuing medical certificates to expatriates after conducting necessary tests in order to obtain their residence permit.

It also issues occupational health cards for those who work in some occupations, such as in foodstuff establishments.

The most important duty of the section is to conduct tests on expatriate labourers and issue occupational health cards.