Low paid Dubai expats struggling to access healthcare

Posted by: Minumaster Monday, 25 January 2010 10:54 AM[UAE] - UAE

Boss, why do we forget that Dubai is a "Business Hub"! So, everything over here has a "Business" perspective, may it be Education or Healthcare or anything else! Therefore Health Care Sector also works on the principle of ?Higher the Price, Better the Quality?! However, the ?Quality? offered is surely a debatable question! (No wonder why GCC/Arab nationals go to India and other countries for the treatment even if the same is available here in UAE? OR ?. May be it is Expensive for them too)!! I still remember the Golden Old days, when Healthcare used to be almost free for EVERYONE residing in Dubai, especially at the D.O.H (Dubai Govt.) run hospitals! During those times a (Govt.) ?Health Card? of Dhs. 250/- for a Year was more than sufficient to access the Healthcare Services at hospitals like Rashid Hospital, Al Wasl Hospital etc. And most of the services including Surgeries etc. were either free of cost or at a very nominal and affordable fee! But, as the time changed, the things also changed! The most trusted and adhorable?Health Card? became more expensive and less useful! Nowadays even if one holds a ?Health Card? one has to pay (from nose) for Each & Every Service which one avails at these hospitals (I am talking about Expats; I don?t know about Emaratis)! Since the ONLY binding on the Employers by LAW is to provide with a ?Health Card?; most of them just FULFIL their responsibility by providing ONLY a ?Health Card? to their Employees and wash their hands off! ??. Now, the Employee is left with only two options, ONE: to bear all the medical expenses by him/herself; TWO: Suffer till he/she can afford to return to his/her home country for treatment, because most of the companies DO NOT reimburse the expenses made by employees even at the Government Hospitals (which, needless to say, are also out of reach of a common man)! And the funniest thing is, NONE of the Government Hospitals are covered by ANY Insurance Company!! So, even if someone has a very basic Health Insurance (which is again good for nothing because it doesn?t cover any major hospitals in UAE); either provided by one?s employer or acquired on one?s own, one has to first spend (even at Govt. Hospitals) and then claim from the Insurance Company, which will be not more than 80% of the total bills, if allowed, as per the insurance policy, because these Government Hospitals fall ?Out of Network? of the insurance company i.e. not included in the network of hospitals of the insurance company! I don?t understand why a Health Insurance (at least Basic) is made mandatory for Employers to provide to their Employees? And, why doesn?t the Govt. make it mandatory for the insurance companies to include the Government Hospitals in the basic cover, so that the healthcare facilities offered by Govt. Hospitals at least are accessible to common people (in other words ?Low paid Dubai Expats?)!? ?????? But who cares????

Posted by: Obelix Sunday, 24 January 2010 2:06 PM[UAE]

Thanks to the business of health insurance, affording quality health care is a dream for most individuals. The first question asked at any private hospital is " Are you insured", if you are, they go trigger happy with the tests and your credit card and keep swiping as if there is a contest to see how much can they claim from the insurance companies. As a self paying patient, recently my wife had a health complication. A leading hospital in Dubai misdiagnosed the case, kept her in hospital for 4 days, robbed us blind, including paying for the personal visits of two surgeons. The visit of the surgeons lasted less than 60s on each day. Thank you, that will be AED 450 per visit, please. The final invoice had a ficticious test which wasn't even remotely connected to the problem she was there for. When I raised a ruckus, they said "mistake", "we'll reverse the charges". I threatened to complain to the ministry and have called them twice. Their PR manager was supposed to call me to discuss with the Director before complaining to the Ministry of Health. Further surgery was advised. We shopped around for hospitals in Dubai and every single hospital offered "packages", which were exorbitant to say the least. Guess what, she finally went to India, got it done at a world class hospital for less than 1/4th the price in Dubai. Thanks to the recession, airfares to India have been reasonable lately :)

Posted by: Qaiser Sunday, 24 January 2010 12:02 PM[UAE] - UAE

I know some people they dont have money to go to hospitals as they cannot afford price wise and they are bearing pain as they dont have money to spent for this.

Posted by: bee Sunday, 17 January 2010 8:58 AM[UAE] - UAE

There was also a big fuss about that from our company whether the UAE law is mandating the company to provide healthcare to their employees.. From my understanding, the company (specially in Dubai) is only mandated to provide at least access to public health care facilities.. This costs only about approx. 300AED. Regarding your contract.. if it's in the contract, then your company should not have done that. Better that you check first what is really in your contract before you complain..it's hard to get a job nowadays you know. And there are company's anyway who have private insurances in place but once you check out the insurance package it's basically useless anyway, unless you get really in trouble.. which I hope not. We'll I hope my comment helped you. If you want to avail of a public health card, you can visit the Dubai Health care website.. Cheers!

Posted by: Amira Smith Thursday, 14 January 2010 6:20 PM[UAE] - UAE

What did happen to the Dubai health plan? All this fuss and money spent on planning it, and then it just disappeared. Also keen to know what happens if you live in Dubai and work in Abu Dhabi. Does that mean you can't access healthcare - under your insurance plan - in Dubai, if the plans are emirate-specific?