Emirati doctor returns to face down national health challenges

ABU DHABI // Dr Anwar Sallam has a firm belief: the UAE needs to get a grip on the growing health problems of its residents. As a medical officer of a large public hospital and one of the few Emirati practitioners in the country, he is in a perfect position to help.

"Practising medicine is a must for me," he says. "It makes it hard, as I rarely have time to myself, but it is what I love. If I'm not seeing patients I'm dealing with admin, it's non-stop. But if I give up practising medicine, I will be giving up what I have spent 15 years of my life working for." Dr Sallam is the deputy chief medical officer at Al Mafraq Hospital in Abu Dhabi, which deals predominantly with Emiratis and patients from the construction industry. He is also a paediatric pulmonologist, treating children who have diseases of the lungs and the respiratory tract.

In choosing to stay in the UAE, Dr Sallam is bucking a trend the country's health authorities are working hard to address. There is a chronic shortage of Emiratis in health care. It is estimated that between 10 and 20 per cent of the health workforce are nationals. The vast majority of nurses, technicians and doctors are recruited from abroad, meaning they inevitably lack the cultural knowledge needed to change the common habits of poor diets and sedentary lifestyles.

"The most important thing is realising what we have here and accepting we have a problem," says Dr Sallam, 39. "The second is educating everybody, not just the public but all the health workers too, to invest something here and tell them not to give up." To transmit the message that people need to live a more healthful lifestyle is hard work, he says. "Education, education and education is the way to help the Emirati people and everyone in this land have a better life."

Fortunately, Dr Sallam has seen how other countries have made headway. After finishing school in Abu Dhabi, he studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. He left his parents and seven siblings to live with a Catholic family who, he says, treated him as one of their own. "All I knew about Ireland was where it was from geography class," he recalls. "Staying with a family helped with the language and I also got to know the place before I lived on my own. I still speak to the family now. The Irish people always love to help strangers, it was a great experience for me."

After his studies he returned to the UAE to work as a general practitioner before he married and took his wife, Ahlam, who is in her early 30s, to live and work in Canada - via Ireland. "I took my wife back on our honeymoon, I wanted her to see how beautiful it is." Eventually, however, Dr Sallam chose to return to the emirate where he was born and raised. He says he wants to be part of the effort to fight the burden of chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, which affect up to one in four nationals.

With his experience, he is seen as something of a role model to young Emiratis and is also a mentor to national medical students. "He encourages these young people to continue to study medicine and enter the medical field," says Hal Chilton, the chief operating officer at Al Mafraq Hospital. "He also acts as an ambassador for the hospital. He is educated and well-travelled, which means he has seen some of the world's best hospitals and understands our ambition to make Mafraq on a par with the best in the world."

As well as being a self-confessed workaholic, Dr Sallam is a hands-on dad who works hard to maintain a strong relationship with his sons: Abdullah, nine, Mohammed, eight, and three-year-old Youssef. "I chose to come back here because I wanted my children to know who they are really are," he says. "Because of my freedom I was able to make the decision to return, it came from inside me. I want my children to make their own choices, just like I did."

@Email:munderwood@thenational.ae