RTA expansion sees government clinic relocated

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The new Dubai Dental Centre will be ready in a year, said Dr Malik.

Dubai's largest government dental centre has become the latest victim of the emirate's ambitious expansion plans.

The Dubai Dental Centre has been forced out of its former home at Rashid Hospital by the Road Traffic Authority's expansion of the Maktoum Bridge.

The clinic has been temporarily relocated to Al Bada'a Health Centre, another government facility, while construction of a new, purpose-built site is completed.

Dr Nasser Malik, assistant director for dental services at Dubai's Department of Health and Medical Services, said that while the move is inconvenient in the short term, the new centre will be a huge improvement on the existing facility.

"We are hoping to have a minimum of seven to eight rooms for each specialty," he said, "as well as theatre rooms, a more centralised, bigger laboratory and, most importantly, everything will be in one big building."

The design of the Rashid Hospital facility meant specialty clinics were separated across the unit. As each clinic had its own appointment book, patients needing multidiscipline care often faced long gaps between appointments.

"When the clinics are all centralised patients can be seen at the same time by the necessary doctors, general practitioners included, and it will make life much easier for everyone," Malik said.

He confirmed that the centre would need to recruit a
significant number of staff once the move to the purpose-built facility has been completed.

"There will be a need," he said. "We have always been under a heavy workload because the population of Dubai is growing and our numbers have not been increasing to keep up with it.

"One of the main limitations was the physical space we had. We didn't have enough room for all of the doctors. So we will be expanding in that direction."

The Al Bada'a site is a smaller temporary home for the centre, but Malik was upbeat: "I feel it is now a leaner, meaner machine."

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