Nurses at Rashid Hospital, complaining of being overworked, are demanding a pay increase and have threatened to strike.
The nurses say their salaries do not reflect their increasing workload and are demanding a 12 per cent rise to match the pay of their colleagues at the Rashid trauma centre next door.
"We would like to resolve this peacefully without resorting to desperate measures such as going on strike, but if nothing happens then staff from various public hospitals will walk out," said Mangi Dres, a senior staff nurse on the hospital's Ward 2. Mr Dres said the nurses are eager to negotiate with the hospital.
"We are just as busy and overworked as the nurses at the trauma centre. The difference is they received a pay increase and we didn't. People should know that the overwhelming majority of trauma patients who are in a coma, confused or still critically ill are moved to Ward 2."
The starting salary for nurses at the Rashid is Dh3,500 (US$950) a month, while for their colleagues at the trauma centre it is Dh6,000. Some private hospitals pay considerably more.
The hospital has 1,000 nurses, of whom 250 work in the trauma unit. The hospital has a total of 2,450 staff, including 450 doctors.
An average shift for a nurse is 12 hours. However, some claim they average 14 hours a day due to heavy workloads.
"Long hours are part of the job. The difference is we don't get paid for working overtime and this goes on every day," said Mr Dres, who has worked as a nurse in Dubai for seven years.
A spokesman for the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) said investments were planned for the health system, but declined to say whether there would be a pay rise for nurses. However, the authority was hoping to alleviate pressure on staff by bringing in more nurses from the Philippines. The UAE, like many countries around the world, is facing a severe shortage of nurses.
Last month the health authority raised salaries at Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre, the region's busiest trauma unit, in line with private hospitals, according to hospital officials.
Walid bin Falah al Mansouri, the director general of the trauma centre, said: "We have had to considerably raise salaries to retain staff."
He said the trauma centre, which will see 380,000 patients this year, was "one of the best in the world". Doctors and nurses, he said, were performing well, "but we need to hire more to alleviate the pressure".
One nurse said: "We like our jobs and what we do. We don't want to strike or be forced to look for work elsewhere but we should get equal pay."
She said the workload was increasing due to the expanding population.
Dr Moen Fikri, a clinical director at the Rashid hospital, said he believed "a shortage of qualified experts will be the biggest problem in the region". His medical staff were being pushed "to the edge" by the rising number of emergency cases.
Last month, Rashid hospital was accredited by Joint Commission International, which recognised it as being in line with international standards of excellence.
"We won this accreditation through heavily investing in staff and equipment and providing the public with the highest level of service at our hospital and this example should be used by other medical centres in the UAE," said Dr Haider al Yousef, head of the transition department at Rashid Hospital.
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Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”