DUBAI - The Ministry of Labour (MoL) will continue accepting Medical Fitness Certificates issued by the Dubai Municipality (DM) until August 20, after which, these certificates will have to be approved by the Department of Health and Medical Services (DoHMS), Humeid Bin Demas, Acting General Manager of Mol and Executive Manager for Labour Affairs at the Ministry of Labour, told Khaleej Times on Sunday.
An agreement in
this connection was signed last week by the Ministry of Health (MoH), DoHMS and
DM. The agreement came after the MoL had rejected some medical certificates
issued by the civic body.
"As per that
agreement, the MoL will accept medical fitness certificates already issued by
Dubai Municipality clinics until August 20. But after that date, the medical
certificates have to be issued by the MoH, DoHMS or DM certificates attested by
DoHMS," said Demas.
A Cabinet
decree was issued in April, prohibiting all private health and municipal centres
from carrying out fitness tests from June 1.
Following this,
DM signed an MoU with DoHMS in May, as per which, it would continue carrying out
medical fitness tests and issuing fitness certificates to residency and
employment visa seekers.
The MoU further
stated that all the medical certificates issued by the Municipality needed to
have the stamp of DoHMS.
Meanwhile,
Zuhoor Al Sabbagh, Director of the Public Health Services Department at the
civic body, told Khaleej Times that some logistic issues related to the DM-DoHMS
MoU were still there.
"The MoU is in
place and we have been issuing the fitness certificates. But there are some
minor logistic issues that need to be sorted out. The work halted for some time
because of the summer holidays and it will be completed very soon," she said.
Sources in the
civic body noted that DM would now issue medical certificates only with the
official logo of DoHMS. This means the DM might stop issuing medical
certificates until the logistics are completed.
"We were not
expecting the rejection of the fitness certificates by the MoL. But now the
remaining work is being done very fast," Zuhoor added.