Insight and opinion from The National’s editorial leadership
April 11, 2024
Fifteen years ago, most UAE residents would rather have gone abroad for medical treatment if they fell seriously ill, as a 2009 survey run by YouGov for The Nationalreported. GCC countries have long made travel overseas for medical reasons available to their citizens in cases where comparable treatment could not be found at home.
While subsidised medical travel remains available for citizens who need it, times have changed. Today, the world increasingly comes to the UAE for its health care, and that includes visitors from elsewhere in the GCC and the rest of the Middle East. The country is one of the fastest-growing markets for medical tourism, with one travel operator telling The National that UAE bookings in the sector have doubled in the past year. Globally, the industry is worth nearly $32 billion, and the UAE’s participation in the medical tourism economy includes not only serious treatments like cancer therapy or bariatric surgery, but general wellness, too. One report estimates that wellness tourists spent $5.4 billion in the Emirates in 2022.
The country has risen as a healthcare hub in the past decade, buoyed by the opening of world-class hospitals and increased investment in people and infrastructure. The 2024 federal budget allocates 8 per cent of its total, or Dh5.2 billion ($1.4 billion), for health care, up Dh800 million ($220 million) from five years ago.
There is plenty of demand. Consumer spending on health care in the UAE outpaces counterparts in the GCC, and it is expected to reach $30.7 billion by 2027.
It isn’t just the patients who come. Overseas healthcare providers have chosen to set up shop, too. Abu Dhabi is home to a leading hospital that is an extension of the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, which was named one of the top 50 hospitals in the world this year, in addition to high-quality hospitals across the UAE.
While there is opportunity in medical tourism, the overriding goal is – as it ought to be – a higher-quality healthcare system for those who call the UAE home. In a message on World Health Day this week, President Sheikh Mohamed spoke of the importance of strengthening the country’s health system as a matter of not only well-being, but “dignity” for UAE residents.
While there is opportunity in medical tourism, the goal is a higher-quality system for those who call the UAE home
The Emirates’ investment in health care, he said, extends beyond the country itself, to include its global partnerships, co-operation, research and investment in areas like disease eradication and prevention and humanitarian relief. Since 2010, the UAE has invested more than a quarter of a billion dollars in the eradication of tropical diseases. In recent years, it has also been a regional leader in humanitarian health care, setting up field hospitals in Gaza and Egypt and evacuating Palestinians and Afghans to the Emirates for life-saving treatment.
At home, policy reform has been a critical to ensuring progress. This year, a landmark ruling introduced a nationwide health insurance mandate, requiring employers in all seven emirates to pay for their staff’s health care. Previously, this requirement only applied in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Health care requires consistent investment and development, which the country has committed to. For the UAE to become a world health leader, not only in medical tourism but in the medical sector generally, continued investment will be required in several areas, such as investing in patient-support services, language interpretation, accreditation and making the costliest services accessible to all patients who need them. With the nationwide mandate coming into effect next year, more people than ever will have access to the UAE’s healthcare system. For regulators and providers alike, that means plenty of new challenges to overcome, but also plenty of opportunity.
88 Video's most popular rentals
Avengers 3: Infinity War:an American superhero film released in 2018 and based on the Marvel Comics story.
Sholay: a 1975 Indian action-adventure film. It follows the adventures of two criminals hired by police to catch a vagabond. The film was panned on release but is now considered a classic.
Lucifer: is a 2019 Malayalam-language action film. It dives into the gritty world of Kerala’s politics and has become one of the highest-grossing Malayalam films of all time.
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
Most sought after workplace benefits in the UAE
Flexible work arrangements
Pension support
Mental well-being assistance
Insurance coverage for optical, dental, alternative medicine, cancer screening
1. Never respond to e-mails, calls or messages asking for account, card or internet banking details
2. Never store a card PIN (personal identification number) in your mobile or in your wallet
3. Ensure online shopping websites are secure and verified before providing card details
4. Change passwords periodically as a precautionary measure
5. Never share authentication data such as passwords, card PINs and OTPs (one-time passwords) with third parties
6. Track bank notifications regarding transaction discrepancies
7. Report lost or stolen debit and credit cards immediately
Sole survivors
Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The fourth season of du Football Champions was launched at Gitex on Wednesday alongside the Middle East’s first sports-tech scouting platform.“du Talents”, which enables aspiring footballers to upload their profiles and highlights reels and communicate directly with coaches, is designed to extend the reach of the programme, which has already attracted more than 21,500 players in its first three years.
What is Reform?
Reform is a right-wing, populist party led by Nigel Farage, a former MEP who won a seat in the House of Commons last year at his eighth attempt and a prominent figure in the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union.
It was founded in 2018 and originally called the Brexit Party.
Many of its members previously belonged to UKIP or the mainstream Conservatives.
After Brexit took place, the party focused on the reformation of British democracy.
Former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson became its first MP after defecting in March 2024.
The party gained support from Elon Musk, and had hoped the tech billionaire would make a £100m donation. However, Mr Musk changed his mind and called for Mr Farage to step down as leader in a row involving the US tycoon's support for far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson who is in prison for contempt of court.
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
