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Dubai: A lack of resources and space are leaving 50 per cent of patients with thalassaemia, a genetic blood disorder, in the UAE without specialised care, says a top thalassaemia doctor.
Thalassaemia is a genetic blood disorder, characterised by the breakdown of oxygen-rich red blood cells, and the most common genetic disease in the UAE, estimated to affect less than eight per cent of the population. Sufferers are forced to undergo frequent blood transfusions to survive.
Dr Khowla Bel Houl, director of the Thalassaemia Centre at Al Wasl Hospital, told Gulf News that the centre has reached its maximum capacity for patients.
"We have 450 patients and we cannot take anymore. We are only serving 50 per cent of thalassaemia patients in the UAE," she said, basing the estimated percentage on the number of requests and applications the centre receives.
She said the Dubai Department of Health and Medical Services (Dohms), which oversees the centre, has had to restrict the number of patients the centre treated in order to maintain the quality of care and treatment.
Unfortunately, she said this also meant that other thalassaemia patients have been forced to seek treatment, such as blood transfusion, elsewhere. Not all aspects of treatment required for the disease are available elsewhere or within one centre, such as nutritional counselling and iron chelation, which is a process of removing extra iron in the blood.
"These patients are not receiving patient-centred treatment as we can give it," she added.
She said health authorities, be it the Ministry of Health, Dohms or the Abu Dhabi Health Authority, have to look into building another centre catering especially to the treatment and prevention of thalassaemia.
Dr Bel Houl spoke to Gulf News after receiving a cheque for Dh6 million from the Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation, to cover the medical expenses of expatriate thalassaemia patients at the centre.
Your comments
A big thanks to H.H Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid for his support of the thalassaemia patients. And a big question to the DOHMS; have you looked into treatment with stem cells to reduce the number of thalassaemia patients?
Peter
Dubai,UAE
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