The first cohort of students of the University of Wollongong in Dubai’s new Health Facility Planning short certificate have celebrated their successes during a graduation ceremony held at the University’s Knowledge Village Campus.

Run in partnership with TAHPI, one of the world’s premier health planning firms, the Health Facility Planning short certificate program is the first of a series of new courses which have been introduced by the University to meet an increasing demand for skilled professionals to drive development of the UAE’s healthcare sector. The course was delivered by TAHPI’s global director and healthcare planning expert Aladin Niazmand over an intensive two week period from both Mohammed Bin Rashid Academic Medical Centre in Dubai’s Healthcare City and UOWD’s campus.

Amongst those graduating during the program’s inaugural ceremony were experts from multinational design and engineering consultancies, international architectural companies, and local government agencies including Dubai Health Authority.

“Despite working in the field for a number of years, I found the course very useful” commented Isabel Arango, Regional Director of Healthcare Operations for Hyder Consulting, and short course graduate. “I’ll definitely use the skills I learnt on a day-to-day basis when working on healthcare infrastructure projects.” 

Fellow graduate Fatma El Sayed Abdel Fattah Mohamed from Dubai Health Authority agreed: “I decided to do the course because Health Facility Planning is a key area for us at Dubai Health Authority. The course was an ABC of everything we needed to know and helped me to understand the scientific basis for a lot of decisions that are made.”

The next course in the series, focusing on Health Service Planning, will begin on 23rd May 2015 and will run concurrently with another opportunity to study the Health Facility Planning course.