261 medical facilities fined in Dubai for violations

dubai — The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) issued 261 fines against medical facilities and received 357 medical complaints against private health facilities in Dubai in 2017.

The figures dropped from 2016, when fines totalled 496. Dr Marwan Al Mulla, director of health regulations department at the DHA, said this decrease is attributed to the modernisation of monitoring systems and quality services provided to customers at private health facilities.

The main reasons for issuing these fines is the non-compliance of the health facility or the professional, with the authority’s laws and regulations, he noted.

This accounted for 103 violations in 2017, while others included non-compliance with technical and health conditions, operation or management of the health facility and not staffing with the required cadres and using unauthorised professionals.

The authority dealt with these violations in accordance with the Executive Council Resolution No. 32 of 2012 on regulating the practice of health professionals in Dubai. The authority took legal action against the violators, which ranged from closing down the facility and terminating the licensee, to issuing warnings and re-evaluating the facilities, Dr Al Mulla said. There has been a notable incre-ase in the private health sector in Dubai with 346 new facilities opened last year. This brought the total number of health facilities in Dubai to 3,115.

The number of professional lic-ences increased by 14,314 last year, totalling the number of licences of professionals working in the health field in Dubai to 37,325.

Out of these 37,325 professionals, 7,698 are doctors, 11,007 work in health-support fields, 2,059 in the dental sector, 16,361 are nurses and midwives and another 200 operate in the alternative medicine field.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com