The budget of the 8th term of Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences 2013-2014 was adopted with an amount of AED 24,516,220 million which exceeds the budget of the previous term with an amount of AED 2,680,605 million. This came during the 26th Board of Trustees meeting held at the Award's headquarter in Bur Dubai and headed by H.E. Abdul Rahman Al Owais, UAE Minister of Health and the Chairman of the Award's Board of Trustees.

 

During the meeting, H.E. Abdul Rahman Al Owais expressed his sincere appreciation to the Patron of the Award, H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Health Authority for his limitless support to the Award. Al Owais pointed out to the decision of increasing the financial allocation for the activities of the Award as a reflection of the expansion in the programs and commitments of the Award through its Center for Arab Genomic Studies, Centre for supporting scientific research within UAE, Continuing Medical Education and Community Service Center and Hamdan Medical Journal.

 

H.E. Abdul Rahman Al Owais thanked the former members of the Board of Trustees for their efforts on supporting the activities of the Award. Also, he welcomed the new members of the Board of Trustees including Eng. Essa Al Maidour, Director General of Dubai Health Authority and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Dr. Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi Director of the UAE University. The meeting was attended by Mirza Al Sayegh, Treasurer, Dr. Ahmed Al-Hashemi, member, Majid Saif Al Ghurair, member, Prof. Najib Al Khaja, Secretary General and Abdullah Bin Souqat, Executive Director. 

 

Prof. Najib Al Khaja, Secretary General of Hamdan Medical Award, said: After reviewing the achievements of the Award during the previous term and the first quarter of the current year, the Board of Trustees members praised the efforts exerted by the Award in supporting the healthcare sector locally, regionally and internationally, particularly in the field of the continuing medical education. Many important training programs accredited from major world medical and academic institutions were the fruits of such cooperation. For example, the cooperation with the University of Montpellier 1, France, has been resulted in launching the Diploma of Regional Anesthesia and Analgesia in 2011. 69 anesthetists has been graduated from the Diploma, and the students of the 3rd batch has enrolled in the program including 36 doctors from the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. In the future, the cooperation with Montpellier 1 University will be expanded through organizing the Diploma of Children's Anesthesia and the Diploma of the Intensive Care Medicine. 

 

"Also, the meeting discussed the importance of moving forward in strengthening the bonds of cooperation, in the field of ??the continuing medical education, with the Vienna University and Washington University in order to meet the needs of doctors and healthcare professionals and improve their performance", Al Khaja said.

 

"The meeting stressed on the importance of following-up the promotional and marketing process for the new topics of the Award in order to receive the largest possible number of nominations. While Drug discovery is the topic of Grand Hamdan Award, Vaccines, Cell Therapy and Targeted Therapy are the topics of Hamdan Award for Medical Research Excellence, alongside with the other international awards, Arab World awards & the UAE awards", he added.

 

"The members of the Board of Trustees stressed on the importance of supporting the Award's role as a link among doctors, healthcare and research authorities and the academic institutions within UAE. The Award has to be the coordinator for the programs and activities of such institutions with the aim of upgrading the healthcare services and saving time, efforts and money. Also, the enhancement of the communication between the Award and the winners of its previous terms is important in order to get benefit from their experiences in the enrichment of the local medical sector", Al Khaja added.