CATHERINE W GICHUKI
DOHA
Prime Minister and Minister of Interior HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al Thani opened the Umm Slal Health and Wellness Center, the third such facility under the Primary Health Care Coporation (PHCC), on Wednesday.
The health centre, which will cater to about 50,000 people, has 20 doctors, 77 nurses, and 22 administrative staff. The facility will remain open from 7am to 11pm, five days a week. It will serve Al Daayen, Umm Slal Mohamed, Umm Slal Ali, Umm Al Amad, and Umm Abiriya.
In a statement, Minister of Public Health HE Dr Hanan al Kuwari said,"Today, we are pleased to inaugurate Umm Salal Health and Wellness Center, the third one to be opened by the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) this year. The centre will offer integrated services for primary healthcare and it will encourage citizens and residents to adopt a healthy lifestyle."
Kuwari said PHCC will also open more health centres in the future.
PHCC Managing Director Dr Mariam Abdulmalik said the new centre replaces the old one and provides wellness services.
"After Leabaib and Rawdat Al Khail health centers, Umm Slal is the third center to be opened this year. The wellness services offered at the facility will help people adopt a healthy lifestyle."
A total of 10 more health centres will open in Qatar between 2017 and 2019. Of the 10, four will open next year.
Umm Slal Health Center Manager Dr Nadia Saleh Ali said the facility runs on the Clinical Information System (CIS) in which all the records of patients are stored electronically and services will be offered through an appointments system.
Executive Director of Operations Dr Samya al Abdullah said around 36,000 patients have registered at the new health centre so far and 30,000 of them are active patients. The new health center offers services which were not available at the old centre.
"This is a wellness centre. It has additional facilities like gymnasium with advanced sports equipment. It also has a swimming pool, massage area, sauna and physiotherapy for both males and females during the week," she said, adding that the facility has preventative care services like antenatal, well-baby clinic and well-woman clinic.
"We will also have a mental health clinic in the future. The health center has a hi-tech lab."
PHCC Executive Director of Engineering Department Nikki Georgios said the health centre is the biggest of all.
Spread over 50 square metres, the unique building has wings of different clinical practices like family medicine, walk-in clinic, dentistry and specialised health promotion.
The building has 64 clinics, highest among all the health centres.
The unique design helps to incorporate support clinical services like laboratory, radiology, physiotherapy, pharmacy, physiotherapy as well as the community halls.
Talking about the time it took for completing the building, Georgios said, "Usually the health centres have a design cycle of one and a half years and a construction cycle of two-years and a half. Since the Umm Salal centre is the biggest one, it took more than two-and a-half years until hand-over to the client and user.”
Manager of North Region Dr Nada al Emadi said most of the visitors to the health centre are walk-in patients. "Already some patients have been seen in the specialty clinic through booked appointments.”