On publicly funded, privately managed care and why UAE is building a model the world needs
Every year, $411 billion in global productivity vanishes – not to recession, not to conflict, but to preventable and untreated vision loss, according to the Lancet Global Health Commission. That figure exceeds the GDP of entire nations. And it represents only one speciality within a healthcare ecosystem where outbound patient travel drains economies far more broadly.
I write as a practitioner and executive operating at the intersection of clinical delivery and healthcare strategy – leading an academic medical center’s expansion into the Gulf. The pattern repeats across emerging markets: governments invest in infrastructure, yet patients still board flights for care they should receive at home.
