The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Visa, the world's leading digital payments company, with the aim of enhancing Dubai's competitiveness as an ideal destination for health tourism.
The agreement was signed by Dr. Marwan Al Mulla, CEO of the Health Regulation Sector at the DHA, and Dr. Saeeda Jaffar, Visa’s Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager for GCC.
According to the agreement, Visa will work in cooperation with its bank partners to provide cardholders with a set of exclusive discounts on medical services provided by members of the Dubai Health Experience (DXH) through the health tourism website www.dxh.ae. Visa cardholders will be able to choose between a range of medical services and procedures, book appointments with doctors, and plan their treatment itineraries.
The agreement will be implemented in two phases.
The first phase targets Visa cardholders from Kuwait to benefit from discounts on services in six clinics and hospitals in the UAE, mainly Al Zahra Hospital, Adam Vital Hospital, Neuro Spinal Hospital, Burjeel Hospital, Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Hospital and King’s College Hospital.
The second phase aims to provide discounts to Visa cardholders in other countries to cover all hospitals and clinics affiliated with the Dubai Health Experience Group (DXH). It will also work with travel agents, airlines and hospitality service providers to obtain various discounts and other offers.
Dr. Marwan Al Mulla highlighted the importance of signing the MoU, which comes as part of the DHA's continuous plans and efforts to build broad horizons of strategic partnerships with various local, regional and global institutions to enhance Dubai's ability and global competitiveness as an ideal destination for treatment and hospitalisation seekers.
He pointed to the effective programmes adopted by Dubai to activate health tourism in cooperation with its strategic partners, which contributed during the past year 2021 to attracting 630,000 international health tourists, their medical expenses amounting to about AED730 million, which are record numbers in light of the exceptional circumstances the world is going through due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which cast negative shadows on various vital sectors, including the health sector.
Dr. Al Mulla also expressed his confidence in the positive results that the MoU with Visa will achieve, and its role in supporting and revitalising health tourism to Dubai because of the discounts and multiple benefits it provides to patients from different countries of the world, and enabling them to benefit from high-quality medical services in various health facilities in the emirate.
For her part, Dr. Saeeda Jaffar said,
"Our strategic agreement with DHA will increase Dubai's attractiveness as a preferred destination for global health tourism, and as a centre for first-class healthcare facilities."
News Source: Emirates News Agency
