Dubai - Mubasher: The UAE’s healthcare sector will benefit from the GCC nation’s recent decision to grant a new five-year visa for expatriate retirees older than 55, Azad Moopen, chairman and managing director of Aster DM Healthcare, said. 

The decision will add a new age segment “which is currently minimally represented in the country,” Moopen told Arabian Business.

He said that about 85% of the UAE’s residents are between the ages of 25 and 55.

“These are considered to be healthy, young adults,” he said, noting that “medical requirements go up” after the age of 60.

He further added that most 80% of an individual’s medical expenditures in most countries take place in the last 10 years of life.

“You’ll have one illness after another, and hospitalisations..That’s not here in the UAE. But if more and older expats stay back in the UAE, that is something that is going to be very good for the health sector. Age-related illnesses are very limited here,” he said.

Giving no figures, Dr. Moopen said the key income from his company's hospitals in other markets – particularly India – come from older patients.