Municipality plans to set up new clinic in Al Quoz

Dubai Municipality is planning to set up a new medical clinic in Al Quoz area to serve residents of Bur Dubai, Jebel Ali and other neighbouring areas who apply for medical fitness certificates and occupational health cards.

This was stated by Salem Mesmar, Director of Public Health Department, at the municipality. He said there has been a high demand for the clinic's services from residents of these areas and the municipality is considering setting up a new clinic in Al Quoz.

The Clinic and Medical Services Section of the department last year issued 163,651 medical fitness certificates to expatriate employees wishing to obtain a residence permit or renew it.

This is a 32 per cent increase from the 103,588 certificates issued in 2001. The number of health cards issued last year were 70,299 against 55,267 of 2001, recording a 27.2 per cent rise.

"We have also plans for setting up a special clinic for the municipality labourers who are working outside and often suffer from various kinds of illnesses."

He added the existing clinic in Deira will undergo various expansions to provide more medical services. Recently, a new physician also a specialist in occupational health, has been appointed to join a team of four general physicians.

Commenting on the new Mobile Clinic introduced recently by the section, he said the idea is to serve companies which want their employees to get inspected at their premises instead of sending them to the clinic. "They can call us to fix an appointment and avail the service."

He said the electronic linking of the clinic with the Dubai Naturalisation and Residence Department (DNRD) will be completed by the end of this year thereby doing away with the manual delivery of medical test results to the applicants. This will reduce congestion at the clinic to a great extent.

Meanwhile, applicants can learn about the test results from the municipality's website: www.dm.gov.ae

Mesmar ruled out any possibility for collecting the cost of medicines from the municipality's staff. "It is the policy of Dubai municipality to offer free treatment and medicine for the staff at their clinic."

He also said the clinic is now serving 900 to 1,000 applicants each day whereas it is equipped to handle only 300. Almost all the staff is now struggling to meet the rush and we have endeavoured to provide the customers with all possible comfort by arranging shaded areas and fans for people queuing up outside the clinic building which cannot accommodate all of them.

To avoid the rush, customers can apply for the medical fitness certificates and occupational health cards through the department's website. All applicants will get a reply specifying the date for medical examination, following which, they can also inquire about the status of their application and when can they collect the certificate.


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