• Home

Five-year plan to nationalise number of medical fields

ABU DHABI -The Ministry of Health has prepared a five-year plan to nationlise a number of fields of specialisation in all medical districts across the UAE.

The plan will be implemented from early January and will continue till 2009, according to a report.

Dr Abdul Ghaffar Abdul Ghafoor, Assistant Under-Secretary of the Ministry for Curative Medicine, who is also Chairman of the Nationalisation Committee at the Ministry, said the plan was based on the results of the meetings held by the committee with the medical districts over the few past months which indicated that it was possible to nationalise a number of medical fields of specialisation including pharmacology, laboratory and radiology over the period of the plan.

The results of the meetings as well as statistical reports showed that the number of nurses was not enough, he said, adding that the committee has been urged to hold an extensive meeting with the board of directors of the nursing institutes in the UAE to work out a new plan and strategy to attract women nationals to join these institutes by creating additional incentives for them and helping them study in these institutes in the evening period.

Abdul Ghafoor said a good percentage of practitioners would graduate from the Faculty of Medicine in the UAE University in addition to another number of practitioners who would graduate from other universities. As far as specialists doctors are concerned, the committee recommended that the ministry officials should be approached for working out a strategic plan to send national doctors abroad to join the fields of specialisation deemed to be required by the ministry.

• UAE