Tribune News Network
Doha
The family has a special place in the Qatari society which is rooted in inherited customs and the teachings of Islam. Family cohesion and awareness of the importance of the family are among the main reasons for bringing family members together in Qatar.
Qatar Family Day, observed annually on April 15, comes not only to remind us of the role and importance of the family, but also to hold us responsible for passing on this heritage to future generations. On this day, Dr. Hamza Yousef, Family Medicine Consultant at the Primary Health Care Corporation’s (PHCC) West Bay Health Centre, said: “We are speaking today about family medicine, which is both old and modern specialty: old in principle, and modern in terms of name, organisation, and effectiveness. It is the central pillar of the modern health system, the measure of the health systems’ development, and the cornerstone of any healthy society.”
Family medicine provides health care to all age groups in society, including infants, children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. Hence, its name has been associated with the family, being the provider of health care to all family members. A family doctor is a doctor who specialises in general medicine so that he/she can provide a comprehensive medical service to all individuals, including all medical treatments provided to chronic disease cases and urgent cases, as well as some surgical interventions and mental illness, and the list goes on. A family doctor also plays a preventive and societal role shared with family members.
Dr. Yousef added that among the advantages of this specialisation is the treatment continuation, as it allows patients to follow up with the same doctor constantly and over the years in various medical fields. A patient, for instance, who suffers from more than one health problem can follow up with one doctor in one place. Indeed, a family doctor cannot treat all diseases, but rather, he/she will be aware of the diseases, will know how to treat them and how to direct the patient to other specialties.
Qatar is one of the pioneering countries in the field of family medicine represented by PHCC. It has established health and wellness centres and introduced developmental programmes, such as the Family Doctor Programme, where the patient chooses his doctor, books appointments, and follows up with him/her, which were highly demanded by patients and visitors, successful, and a quantum leap in the existing system.
