Under the patronage and presence of H.E Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director General of the Dubai Health Authority, the Joslin Diabetes Center, affiliate at the Dubai Health Authority celebrated its first anniversary.

The centre is the only dedicated multidisciplinary diabetes care and management establishment in the Emirate of Dubai.

Located in the campus of Al Wasl Hospital, the centre was last year inaugurated by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and President of Dubai Health Authority with an aim of providing the people of Dubai a multi-disciplinary treatment facility to prevent and manage the disease.

The Joslin Diabetes Center was established in Boston in 1898 and since then it has been a global leader in meeting the ever-changing challenges of diabetes. The opening of this centre in Dubai last year, marked its presence in the gulf region, where diabetes is a pressing medical concern.

His Excellency Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director General of the DHA said:

Dr Hamed Farooqi, M.D., Medical Director of the Joslin Diabetes Center Dubai presented the annual statistics as well as highlighted the number of visits the centre has made across government, semi-government, private entities, colleges and universities to conduct free glucose screening for the public. In addition to this, beginning next month the centre is also planning conduct lectures of diabetes care and management for the benefit of the public.

He mentioned that over the last one year, the centre has recorded more than 15, 588 patient visits. Of these, 5898, were new patient visits and 9690 were follow-up patient visits.

In terms of the clinical indicators, for the first three months of the opening of the centre, the accumulative average of the blood glucose level decrease was enough to show a 20% decrease in blindness and 30% decrease in kidney failure in the group of patients that the centre received.

The centre has also been consistently conducting screening for diabetic damage to the eyes and results showed that one in five individuals were unaware that they were already suffering from retinal damage.

Dr Farooqi said, “The Joslin Diabetes Centre is a pioneer in diabetes management and we have over the last one year brought the most advanced diabetic care to the Emirate of Dubai. We work at various levels from providing treatment to diabetics and pre-diabetics, establishing a strong referral system, training healthcare practitioners in diabetes management, promoting diabetes awareness and building unified diabetes protocols across DHA hospitals to ensure that we can not only control the incidence of diabetes but also prevent further cases.”

The Affiliate features a state-of-the-art treatment facility for patients with diabetes and focusses on prevention, education, lifestyle management and podiatry, as well as early detection of complications for patients ages 18 and older. A pediatric division is planned for the future.

The centre mirrors the same approach to treating and preventing diabetes as is followed in Boston and has the capacity to treat 100 patients a day.

Clinicians at the Dubai centre include four U.S.-board certified endocrinologists, seven diabetes educators, a podiatrist, a physiotherapist and a mental health counselor.

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Dubai Health Authority (DHA) | AMEinfo.com