Middle East needs to curtail brain drain: Haya

Healthcare leaders have been urged to develop strategies to stop ‘brain drain’ in the medical field from the Middle East.

On the final day of the Arab Health exhibition, Princess Haya bint Hussein, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, urged leaders to devise strategies to retain talent.

“Like all developing countries, the Middle East too is facing a brain drain. We need to devise effective strategies to retain talent,” she said while delivering the keynote address at the Leaders in Healthcare conference on Thursday.

She also said that though healthcare affordability was considered a luxury in the Gulf region, it was far from the case. “Expenditure on healthcare in the region is lower but there is a clear warning on the horizon,” she said.

“For better or worse, today we are a part of a global health economy. The health of Emiratis and others in the region is increasingly tied to developments abroad.”

Princess Haya said there was a need to shape a healthcare system that was affordable either through the private sector or through private public partnerships. “It is clear that an effective health strategy that serves all must be far broader than medical interventions,” she said.

“A whole range of actors — both public and private — must work in harmony and focus on prevention far more than we do today. The key is promoting healthy lifestyles — raising the level of physical activity, improving the quality of diets, reducing tobacco and other harmful substances and following simple public safety measures.”

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE