Inside Dubai Camel Hospital

Gulf News

Situated on Dubai Al Ain road roughly between Dubai Outlet Mall and the 7’s is the brand new Dubai Camel Hospital. The world’s first medical facility 100% dedicated to the health and well-being of the countries camel population.  See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos

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00:00Dubai has silently achieved another world's first. This time, it wasn't announced with

00:08fanfare or a Guinness World Record, but instead was launched quietly with almost no publicity

00:13at all. Situated on Dubai Al Ain Road between Dubai Outlet Mall and The Sevens is the brand

00:18new Dubai Camel Hospital, the world's first medical facility 100% dedicated to the health

00:24and well-being of the country's camel population.

00:26We have the camel, which is the most important animal, I think, in the region. If you think

00:36about breeding, racing, that's why the government here, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, he thought

00:46to build this hospital to help these sick camels. And especially, you know, after races

00:55or during the races, there will be a lot of, you know, fractures. So there is no such hospital

01:04in the region to treat this type of cases. So from there, you know, the idea came that,

01:10you know, the need to build a hospital like this was must.

01:16The 40 million dirham facility had a soft opening in 2017 and was almost instantly flooded

01:21with patients as word spread quickly among the population. Now officially open, it boasts

01:26some world-class technology mostly adapted from the horse racing world to diagnose and

01:31treat camels.

01:32You know, camel has got a very long neck. So we cannot reach with the normal length

01:37of endoscope to the stomach. And that's why we have made specially a long arm endoscope,

01:46five meter long arm endoscope we have just custom made for our camel needs.

01:52The vast majority of the patients admitted to the hospital come from the camel racing

01:55scene in the UAE, and the injuries that doctors encounter in the hospital are what you would

02:00expect from such camels.

02:02So we're seeing a lot of orthopedic cases, including fractures, joint problems, ligament

02:06problems, tendon problems. We're seeing a lot of soft tissue issues, abdominal problems,

02:13head and neck problems. So again, a very sort of broad spectrum, if you like, of surgical

02:18conditions are coming in. A lot of lameness conditions coming in as well. A lot of upper

02:22respiratory issues too.

02:24But how close are camels to other equine species? And how does veterinarian training need to

02:29adapt to suit needs specific to camels?

02:31Yeah, I mean, the camel is kind of in between the horse and the cow, let's say, with a bit

02:36of giraffe thrown in. And so, you know, using those species brought into the camel world

02:43is actually, the transition is not as big as you think. The many conditions are very

02:48similar, actually. And so we can use the same approaches, the same technology, the same

02:53experiences, both pre, intro and post-op, to basically tackle pretty much every single

02:59case you're going to come across in the camel.

03:01The Dubai Camel Hospital has recently successfully performed an operation on a racing camel that

03:05would previously have left the camel severely lame or worse before the hospital was opened.

03:10A world's first for the hospital and for the UAE.

03:13So a humeral fracture is your long bone here. Okay, that's called the humerus. Okay. And

03:19this camel has sustained it as possibly a stress fracture initially that then went on

03:23to catastrophic fracture. And so we went in there to repair it using the latest locking

03:29plate technology. And so, yeah, that is quite a groundbreaking surgery in the camel world.

03:36And what is the success rate of a specialized surgery like this? And will the camel ever

03:39race again after recovery is complete?

03:41Well, the success rate of these, you know, we, I would probably toss a coin in the air

03:46and give you a 50-50 split on that. It will certainly never return to racing, but, you

03:50know, the aim of this particular repair was to get this camel sound enough so it can breed

03:56comfortably afterwards. And so that's kind of the sort of, you know, the severity of

04:00the injury it had. It will never return to racing, but we can fix it well enough with

04:05the right technology, the right team, the right aftercare, the right physiotherapy to

04:09get it back to breeding soundness.

04:11With the ability to treat minor to severe ailments, the Dubai Camel Hospital is a true

04:15blessing to the country's camel population and is helping to advance Dubai's heritage

04:20of camel husbandry into a new era. Logan Fish for Gulf News.

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