Korean hospital to manage Dubai rehab

The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bobath Memorial Hospital of Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday to run the new Dh44-million Dubai Rehabilitation Centre (DRC) for the next four years.

The MoU was signed at the DRC by DHA Director-General Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid and Sung-Min Park, chief director of Neulproon Medical Foundation under which Bobath Memorial Hospital is operating in Seoul.

Al Murooshid said the DRC is part of the strategy of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to have a first-of-its-kind short stay facility in the emirate for elderly patients and others with geriatric needs under one roof.

“We have opened the management to hospitals in Saudi Arabia, Canada and Korea, but we have chosen Bobath Memorial Hospital for it has the best combination of Far Eastern and European technology that can be transferred and shared with our medical personnel through knowledge, technology and skills training,” Al Murooshid said.

“Professors from Korea and their German-linked hospitals will come to give lectures to our medical staff. In all, patients will benefit as we make sure everything is concrete.”

Hailed as a big step for the DHA, the DRC has a staff of 80, of whom seven are doctors, 25 physiotherapists, 50 nurses and the rest assistant physiotherapist, social workers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, dieticians and administrative personnel.

From the side of Bobath Memorial Hospital, a full strength of three doctors, ten physiotherapists and a coordinator will come to run the DRC, which has a 30-bed in-patient capacity and between 80 and 120 outpatient capacity.

Park expressed appreciation over the decision of the DHA to award the management to Bobath Memorial Hospital, a 530-bed rehabilitation facility considered the biggest in South Korea and one of the well-known rehabilitation facilities in the world.

“We feel honoured and very happy. We take full responsibility of managing the DRC for the next four years. We will start training physiotherapists of Rashid Hospital in the next three to four months as their medically stable patients will be shifted to this centre for further rehabilitation,” he added.

Dr Mohammed Ali AlSwaini, Clinical and Administrative Coordinator, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department, Rashid Hospital, said that all medically stable patients from any DHA and Ministry of Health hospitals in the UAE can be transferred to the centre after they are screened by the hospitals.

“Even those out-patients covered by the DHA, health insurance and paying patients are all welcome to the DHA as it is a special and unique facility for all needing rehabilitation,” said Ali AlSwaini.

He said that tens of equipment are available at the DHA and specialised seminars such as on trans-cranial magnetic stimulation therapy, hydrotherapy and others will be held annually to standardise and upgrade therapeutic services offered to patients in the emirate.

The 7,000-square-metre DRC, which will officially open within 90 days, has rooms for 30 in-patients; a therapy room (gym) for 15 individuals and four electrotherapy rooms; rooms for hydrotherapy with pool therapy, physiotherapy with latest equipment for kinesio, chiro, electro and magneto therapies and gait training; an occupational therapy room; an outdoor therapy courtyard; a speech therapy room and an inner courtyard.

lily@khaleejtimes.com