Some of the winners at the “Dubai Healthcare City Authority Excellence Awards 2019” .

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

Dubai Healthcare City Authority-Regulatory (DHCR) has distinguished segments of the medical community which normally are left unrecognized despite being the backbone of health and wellness.

The distinctions came about when the regulatory body of the Dubai Healthcare City (DHC) free zone—for the first time—honoured two researchers and one nurse at the third cycle of the “Dubai Healthcare City Authority Excellence Awards 2019” held on Wednesday morning with guest-of-honour Dubai Health Authority-Board chairman/director general Humaid Al Qutami.

University of Sharjah-Institute for Medical Health Sciences director Prof. Taleb AlTel into Organic Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Design/Discovery was chosen for the “Basic Sciences Research Category Award.” His research led to a unique three-dimensional chemical molecule that when further developed and pursued in human clinical trials—the results of completed animal clinical trials are “excellent”—may become the innovative cures for cancer, infectious diseases, hyperlipidemia, and all multi-drug-resistant pathogens. The “Applied Sciences Research Award” went to Khalifa University of Science and Technology-Electrical and Computer Engineering Prof. Leontios Hadjileontiadis, also into Biomedical Engineering. He invented a depression app in 2018 which has successfully helped 33 sufferers of depression who have sought medical/mental health assistance at the American Neurological Centre in Abu Dhabi.

Hadjileontiadis created the downloadable depression app—free and available with the Android—taking into consideration everyone’s deep involvement with their mobile phones and similar gadgets. Through it, the mood and depression levels of an individual are deciphered by way of the finger taps on the keyboard.

“I am now working on this app for Alhzeimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. My goal is for this app to be of help to all the mental health issues mankind is facing because of all that is happening around us today.”

AlTel and Hadjileontiadis are among the 95 individuals who have been granted seed money for research studies, since 2014, by the DHCA-affiliated Al Jalila Foundation.

Al Jalila Foundation has research as one of its pillars aside from education and treatment. It has so far allocated Dhs25 million for the discovery of pioneering and personalized medical therapies and treatments.

The first recipient of the “Distinguished Nurse Award” is Rim Kassem Youssef, with 11 years of Emergency/Trauma treatment in her home country of Lebanon and the UAE, the brainchild of a mobile clinic programme and orthopaedic educational plan, among other “outside of the nursing sphere” interests and volunteer work.

Youssef helped develop and implement nursing policies for the Emirates Specialty Hospital at the DHC. 

She is the daughter of two physicians in Lebanon who encouraged her to discover her place in the medical community; but dissuaded her from following their footsteps “because, my parents said the world needs more nurses.”

DHCR-Chief Regulatory officer Dr. Ramadan AlBlooshi told Gulf Today the new categories were introduced this year as the organization believes researchers and nurses must be given due recognition not only for the invaluable hours and skills they dedicate in their areas of expertise crucial to healthcare; but more importantly, their humane-ness in dealing with all the challenges they meet in their chosen profession.

“I call research the gate through which proper medications and drugs are known for specific health issues and diseases (that keep on popping up). We have to have the right and correct treatments (and approaches).” 

AlBlooshi pointed out the significance of nurses who carry out all the directives and order of doctors for the care of their patients: “I say 60 per cent of the care and after-care come from the nurses. They take care of each patient. They are the angels (in healthcare).”

The “Inspiring Woman Award” recipient for this year was Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences-Strategy and Institutional Excellence director/Health Policy assistant professor Dr. Reem Al Gurg.