Dubai launches new smart system to make visa medical testing faster

The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) has launched a new medical fitness and occupational screening system to make it faster to receive results of health tests for visas. The new system, called Salem, will “reduce customers’ waiting time, minimise human intervention to almost zero and make blood test and x-ray results available electronically”, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) said in a statement. The system has been integrated to all medical fitness centres in Dubai. Maisa Al Bustani, director of the Medical Fitness Services Department at the DHA, also confirmed that Salem is now also integrated with the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs – Dubai (GDRFA). With the new system, customers do not need any papers – the data will be retrieved from GDRFA. “Companies with employees above 50 do not need to go through service centres as we provide them with unique usernames and passwords so that they can directly fill the applications online using the system,” said Al Bustani. “Individuals and companies with less than 50 employees need to go through service centres to fill out their application for visa issuance and renewal. They can log onto the DHA website to find a list of accredited typing centres. Most of the medical fitness centres have a service center in the same premise and they are accredited.” So far, 65 service centres (35 of which are Tasheel Centres) have been accredited and are authorised to provide services, she said. The new system has also reduced the procedure time at service centres from 45 minutes and above, to less than a minute. “Once the applicant completes all the due screening procedures, the applicant will receive a SMS notification alert and we will send the results electronically via an email,” she added. The authority is also planning to launch an app to further ease the medical fitness test procedures. “The move is of significant importance given the vast number of people who require medical fitness services,” the DHA said. In 2015, the total number of people who visited DHA run medical fitness centres were 2,051,802. Of these 843,085 were new applicants and the remaining were visa-renewals. The medical fitness test is a mandatory requirement for all expats in the UAE with health screening a prerequisite for a residency, employment and education visas.