e 3 a s h i g R E F L E C T I O N S

Much To be Desired

As far as I know, there is no Watchdog for the medical profession in UAE. The GMC in the UK represent the public in monitoring the conducts of doctors. People can not practice medicine without their approval and when things start to go south, its them that holds doctors accountable for their actions. It’s not the most popular organisation because, as a doctor, if you have anything to do with the GMC other than your registration and licence to practice, its usually bad news.

With no watchdog and a population that prefers to whine rather than lodge formal complaints with the legal establishment, problems are usually dealt with in the media who are not exactly qualified to decide what went wrong. No one really knows where the Ministry of health fits in and what exactly do they do in terms of peer-evaluation of doctors in question. Anecdotal cases suggests that it is usually down to one person (either in MoH or in the legal establishment) to knock doctors off the registry (if there is such a registry - why is it not publicly available?) and stop them from practicing medicine.

Here is one typical case where the Neuro Spinal Hospital in Jumaira is in the spotlight for malpractice. It looks like, in this case, the Dubai Department of Health are the ones in charge of investigating the incident. There is no mention of the mechanism of their process and what benchmarks do they use (NICE-like organizations in UAE, anyone?). There are four official bodies in UAE that represent the government in managing and legislating the medical profession; the Ministry of Health (MoH), Abu Dhabi Health Authority (HA), The Dubai department Of Health (DDoH), and the Army Medical Services. These organizations appear to function as standalone entities with their own policies and protocols. There is no dedicated watchdog. There is no centralised clinical guidlines-publishing body. There is no centralised postgraduate training body either for that matter. This indeed leaves a lot to be desired and much room for problems.