DOH Abu Dhabi extends 24-hour services at 12 primary care centres with SEHA Clinics

The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH) has extended 24-hour services at 12 primary care centres across Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, including urgent care, in collaboration with SEHA Clinics. The expansion takes effect immediately.

The decision addresses a known bottleneck in Abu Dhabi's healthcare system: after-hours demand that pushes non-emergency patients into hospital emergency departments. By keeping 12 centres open around the clock, DOH is creating a lower-cost, faster-access alternative for urgent but non-critical cases.

What the expansion covers

The 12 primary care centres span both Abu Dhabi city and Al Ain, the emirate's two largest population centres. Services now available 24 hours a day include:

• Primary care consultations for non-emergency conditions
• Urgent care for same-day treatment below the hospital ED threshold
• Extended access for Al Ain's roughly 800,000 residents, who previously had limited overnight primary care options
• Coverage across SEHA Clinics' network of more than 70 facilities emirate-wide

Abu Dhabi's resident population exceeded 3.8 million in 2025. The 12 centres selected for round-the-clock operations were chosen based on population density, existing patient volumes, and geographic gaps in after-hours care.

Why this matters for operators

For hospital COOs, the calculation is direct. Emergency departments across Abu Dhabi have reported rising volumes year on year, driven partly by patients with non-emergency conditions arriving outside standard clinic hours. According to DOH's 2024 annual report, non-emergency cases accounted for a significant share of ED visits. If the 24-hour centres absorb even a fraction of that demand, ED overcrowding eases and cost per visit drops.

For private clinic operators, the signal is competitive. DOH has raised the baseline for access in public primary care. Any private provider operating standard daytime hours in Abu Dhabi or Al Ain now faces a public alternative that never closes. Private urgent care centres will feel the pressure most directly.

CFOs at private facilities should watch reimbursement patterns. DOH has used expanded public access in the past as grounds to tighten what it considers appropriate ED use. If claim rejections for non-emergency ED visits increase in the coming quarters, the existence of 12 round-the-clock primary care centres will be the regulatory justification.

Abu Dhabi's primary care push

The expansion fits a DOH strategy that has been building since 2023. Abu Dhabi's Healthcare Capacity Master Plan calls for primary care to handle 70–80% of all patient encounters, with the explicit goal of reducing reliance on specialist and hospital-based care.

SEHA's restructuring into separate hospital and clinic entities was designed for this kind of expansion. SEHA Clinics can scale ambulatory operations without the overhead structure of the hospital network, and the 24-hour model was piloted at select locations over the past 18 months before this wider rollout.

For health tech vendors, the operational requirements of 24-hour primary care create procurement opportunities. Round-the-clock centres need triage decision-support tools, remote consultation capabilities for low-acuity overnight visits, and workforce scheduling systems that manage rotating shifts across 12 locations simultaneously.

The next indicator to watch: whether DOH mandates private insurers to steer covered lives toward these centres before authorising ED visits. That policy shift, if it comes, would change after-hours care economics across Abu Dhabi.