ICL Diabetes Centre opens Al Ain branch

The Imperial College London Diabetes Centre (ICLDC) has opened its second branch in Al Ain to provide the much-needed diabetes care in the Eastern Region. Shaikh Tahnoun bin Mohammed Al Nahyan, Ruler’s Representative in the Eastern Region, officially opened the second state-of-the-art facility on Monday. “We were encouraged to open the Al Ain centre because we have a good number of patients coming from Al Ain (to ICLDC Abu Dhabi)... The opening of the second centre in Al Ain ensures many more people in the UAE have access to the world-class treatment,” said Dr Maha Taysir Barakat, ICLDC’s medical and research director and consultant endocrinologist. Since becoming operational in September last year, ICLDC Al Ain has been seeing around 160 patients a day, many of whom are new visits to the facility. With an approximate 400 patients a day in the ICLDC Abu Dhabi, it is expected that about 10,000 patients will be seen by both centres per month. The new facility has already received two endorsements from the Joint Commission International (JCI) — the JCI Certification in the Clinical Care Programme for Diabetes Management and the JCI Accreditation in Ambulatory Care — both held by ICLDC’s Abu Dhabi facility in 2009 and 2010, respectively. ICLDC is still the only facility in the world to hold both of these certifications. ICLDC is a partnership between Mubadala Healthcare (a business unit of Mubadala Development Company) and Imperial College London, a science-based institution that is consistently rated as one of the world’s best universities. ?