By Ayman Adly/Staff Reporter

The Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) should adopt a comprehensive system to issue medical reports, the Central Municipal Council has suggested. This, in turn, will provide easy access to patients’ files and allow physicians to swiftly prepare the required reports and deliver them on time to the parties concerned, it said.
The Central Municipal Council (CMC) yesterday passed various recommendations to upgrade the HMC’s public services for appointments and issue of medical reports.
The council recommended that the HMC inform and instruct patients on how to apply for medical reports and the related procedures. Besides, the reports should be issued in Arabic along with English, if possible.
Patients should be asked to provide all the necessary information when they contact the HMC call centre for a medical appointment, it has been recommended. In addition, their medical information has to be updated every six months to facilitate further communication.
On its part, the HMC should increase the number of employees at the medical appointment office as well as specialist doctors in high-demand areas to reduce the waiting period.
A study, the CMC has suggested, should be conducted to look into the possibility of adopting an electronic system that automatically refer patients from different health centres to the HMC.
There is an agreement between the National Control Centre and the Ministry of Interior to have a contract with Ooredoo to determine the location of emergency cases over the phone. The CMC has recommended that the agreement be implemented as soon as possible to help ambulances locate emergency patients through phone calls without any delay.
The HMC has to get more new ambulances with state-of-the-art facilities and discard the old ones, the CMC has suggested. It should also acquire an adequate number of helicopter ambulances with room for more than one patient, so that several cases could be addressed simultaneously.
The CMC reiterated its demand that the HMC encourage Qataris to work as paramedics and ambulance drivers, and provide them with good incentives and professional training. It should also raise public awareness on the proper method of accessing emergency and ambulance services through a TV programme aired regularly in co-ordination with Qatar TV and Al Rayyan TV.
The Ministry of Municipality & Urban Planning (MMUP), along with the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), should study the possibility of adding special entry and exit points to ease ambulance movement at existing and under-construction highways, as well as landing spots for helicopter ambulances.
At its regular biweekly session yesterday, the CMC recommended that the MMUP and Ashghal collaborate to design special “basins” for plants on roads so that vehicles and pedestrians do not get wet while the plants are watered. Sophisticated irrigation systems should also be installed to ensure that the plants are not watered during the rush hour. Besides, it was suggested, Ashghal should ensure that the recycled water was properly purified and treated to prevent harm to road users and infrastructure.