Dubai: First health hub for 'good medicine' opens in Jumeirah

A new health hub that treats patients' overall wellbeing — and not just their diseases — opened in Dubai on Friday.

Called Wellth, the facility in Jumeirah practises the integrative medicine approach, which is also called 'good medicine'.

Instead of zeroing in on illnesses, the first-of-its-kind hub empowers patients to lead healthy lives so they can tackle and prevent chronic or hereditary diseases. It offers a range of therapies that boost one's immunity and improve overall wellbeing.

Asked whether this approach can be considered 'alternative medicine', Dr Frank Lipman, key advisor of Wellth, said: “We need to get away from the terms ‘complementary and alternative medicine’ because we are offering different ways of healing to our patients including medications if needed.

"But whatever modality we use, we will always look for the underlying causes of the problem and always work with diet, lifestyle and other therapies first to try to create the changes that are needed to rectify the problem.”

Wellth's opening comes at a time when the UAE is seeing a spike in the number of people who are prioritising their health in a post-Covid world.

It will offer a range of complementary therapies, curated by two trusted proponents of integrated medicine worldwide — Dr Deepak Chopra along with Dr Frank Lipman.

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How is Wellth different?

“We use the knowledge we’ve gained from science and the wisdom learnt from many different ancient traditions. So, it’s not either-or but taking the best of both and using what’s appropriate for the particular patient and problem,” explained Lipman.

He added: “In Western medicine, we tend to treat these problems with medications which can be helpful in tamping down the symptoms but can also have severe side effects. What we do at Wellth is look for the underlying causes — which usually have something to do with a combination of a poor diet, a leaky gut and gut health in general, stress, toxins and low-grade infections.

In the UAE, he said, there is still a gap when it comes to integrating wellness or complementary healing with western treatments.

"Therefore, Wellth has been designed to offer just that ‘good medicine’.”

Future of healthcare

A pioneer of mind-body medicine in the 90s, Dr Chopra explained that the future of wellbeing is "very precise, personalised and predictive".

Through integrative or functional medicine, many chronic problems that many patients experience today could be addressed.

“Today everything is measurable. There is no experience that is not measurable. This way, you can see the correlates of the experience to both health and disease, and then through deep learning systems and even AI, one can begin a precise programme for self-regulation. So, the future of wellbeing is very precise, personalised and predictive. Many chronic diseases are also reversible," the doctor added.

The clinic, which brings in top-notch practitioners, will work together as a team to offer patients best-in-class medicine.

Commenting on Wellth's opening, Dr Azad Moopen, founder chairman and managing director of Aster DM Healthcare, said: “This is going to be in alignment with the aim of the heathcare department here that more patients should come from other countries to Dubai for their health and wellness issues. Usually, people come for treatment. Here, it's different. We want to attract them for wellness."

Alisha Moopen, deputy managing director of Aster DM Healthcare — who is the chief Wellth creator at Wellth — said: “In the post-pandemic world, we are all acutely aware that true wealth is nothing but good health. We want to encourage people to make good health and well-being their top priority. What we are trying to do is think about health as an investment.

"How is it that we make those consistent investments into healthcare…so that it doesn’t get to a point where the expenditure gets atrocious, as we (often) see while addressing sick-care. It really depends on the plan that people are in. There are people who have got full coverage for a lot of the services. Therefore, it’s important to understand that one must have a plan which has more extended coverage for well-being.”

• Lifestyle
• Dubai