By Salman Siddiqui
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The Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) is working with the Supreme Council of Health (SCH) to expand the medical facilities that they jointly run to ensure that all those who visited the single workers clinic got the necessary treatment, a senior official has said.
Referring to complaints that the QRC-managed health centre in the Industrial Area was not able to attend to all the patients who turn up at the facility, Dr Dauod Abdel al-Mutty al-Bast, CEO for QRC Health Centres, said they were forced to work within their limits at the moment.
The QRC has called a meeting of officials concerned to look into the matter.
The QRC-run Workers Health Centre in the New Industrial Area treats around 1,000 people every day. “We try our best to accommodate everybody. Our focus is not on the numbers but the quality of treatment,” Dr Dauod told Gulf Times.
In an official response e-mailed to Gulf Times, QRC said: “We are currently working with the Supreme Council of Health to expand our capacity and facilities, to meet the increasing flow of workers seeking medical care. Because of the huge numbers of visitors every day, we are not able to admit all the arriving patients so we apply the triage system to evaluate their cases at entry points and assign them to relevant clinics.
“To deal with the problem that most visitors are not aware of the admission system, we are co-ordinating with competent authorities (such as the Ministry of Labour and the Department of Industrial Estates) to inform employees about the applicable system.
“Actually, most of the health problems that we receive are caused by lack of personal hygiene and by promoting healthy habits among workers there will be less pressure on our facilities and we will be able to offer better services, both qualitatively and quantitatively.”
The QRC health centres use the Q-Matic system, seeing patients on a first-come-first-served basis. Only holders of a valid Qatari ID and a health card designated to Health Centre No 21, which covers Doha and the Industrial Area, are accepted.
The Industrial Area medical centre has seven general-practitioner clinics and two internal medicine clinics in the morning shift (7am-2pm), and five general practitioner clinics in the afternoon shift (2pm-9pm), with a maximum capacity of 50-55 patients each. The clinics work nonstop from 7am to 9pm.
“As each clinic receives an average of 50-55 patients per shift, we are able to allot only seven minutes maximum per person, to admit as many as possible. It is common that our clinics stay beyond the working hours every day, which we try to manage without compromising the quality of services. To cope with this, we capitalise on the skills of our experienced physicians and multilingual qualified nurses and assistants. We are a full-fledged health centre and do not have any shortage of staff.”
Explaining the patient intake system, QRC said coupons are issued until 7am for the morning shift. After that patients are given afternoon tickets until 8-9am and are advised to report at 2pm. “Even after the quota of tokens for the day is finished, patients continue to be triaged, and according to the severity of the case, are either seen on the same day or advised to visit the centre the next day.”
Urgent cases are referred directly to a special department which works 24/7. The dental clinic works in both shifts and an ophthalmology clinic functions only in the morning hours . In addition, there is a well-equipped pharmacy, a fully-automated laboratory and a radiology department using the latest X-ray and ultrasound technologies. Page 31
