UAE embassy gives US $2m to health By Laura Pillay |11 December 2019

Minister Adam shakes hands with Mr Alneyadi at the ceremony to officially announce the donation (Photo: Jude Morel)

In line with the Ministry of Health’s vision to improve the quality of care on offer to local patients, more specialists will be recruited in the coming years and the capacity of local medical specialists improved, through a US $2 million donation to the ministry from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) embassy.

The donation was officially announced yesterday afternoon in a brief ceremony at the Sheikh Khalifa Diagnostic Centre at the Seychelles Hospital whereby chargé d'affaires of the embassy Ahmed Saeed Alneyadi reaffirmed the UAE’s commitment towards the health sector of the Seychelles, on behalf of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces H.H Sheikh Mohamed bin Al Zayed Al Nahyan.

The donation, which has been placed directly into a special account that supports continuous improvement of medical specialisation in Seychelles, will allow for the extension of the work being done by specialists already working in Seychelles, as well as the recruitment of new ones.

It will also facilitate the development of new partnerships whereby Seychellois specialists can undertake placements at UAE based hospitals in a bid to build capacity of local medical professionals.

“The UAE has placed strong focus and attention to the health sector as it aims to serve all citizens of Seychelles, providing them with a comprehensive, world-class health care,” Mr Alneyadi said.

“As you have witnessed lately, UAE and Seychelles are working closely with the health sector towards achieving its national goals, which aims at maintaining the well-being of the people of the Seychelles, with services that reflect innovation, sophistication and development, especially for services covering human health, physical and psychological integrity,” Mr Alneyadi stated.

It must be noted that the account was established in 2015 with a first donation of US $2 million, following the donation of the Sheikh Khalifa Diagnostic Centre to maximise the use of the centre through the recruitment of specialists. Over the five-year period, 29 specialists have been recruited by the ministry, some of which are still employed with the ministry.

In his address, Minister for Health Jean-Paul Adam expressed gratitude on behalf of the government of Seychelles to the government of UAE for offering their support to help address the main challenges in the local healthcare sector.

He went on to note that the priority recruitment areas include cardiology, vascular surgery, oncology, head and neck surgery, emergency physicians, rheumatology and chest physicians.

“When the fund was established in 2015, there was no stated duration but we have consulted that to make a bigger long-term impact, there needs to be more time and the needs are also increasing. Gradually as we are introducing new services, we are discovering new needs as well. But in the meantime, we need more specialists and to reduce the number of patients having to be treated overseas. Certain procedures, for instance keyhole surgeries, have greatly helped but we need to continue developing our local professionals,” Minister Adam noted.

Despite the intake of over 30 young doctors in the ministry over the past couple of years, the fund will not necessarily fund the development of such young professionals, but is rather geared towards doctors who are already specialists.

“The new doctors are general practitioners and are yet to specialise and it takes around 4 or 5 years for a doctor to specialise so the newly qualified doctors, we are expecting that they will all be specialists within the next 10 years. The fund is mainly for our specialist needs that are more immediate,” Minister Adam added, noting that the ministry is still prioritising specialisation for young doctors.

Through the possibility for fellowships for local specialists at UAE based medical centres, Minister Adam hopes to build the capacity and competency of local specialists especially in relation to the new services on offer in Seychelles including laparoscopic surgery, among others.

“The support from UAE has been consistent. They have supported us with the diagnostic centre, the Perseverance hospital and even there, there are specialists not funded for by the fund. We anticipate that we can renew it once it is finished and we hope that we can build local competency and capacity of specialists,” Minister Adam concluded.

The UAE is one of the four states that support Seychelles’ health sector along with Cuba and Morocco.