Children aged under 5 barred from adult swimming pools in Dubai hotels

Municipality informs hotels across the emirate of the new rule

All children must be accompanied by their guardians in hotel swimming pool areas, authorities in Dubai have said. Silvia Razgova / The National

Children under the age of 5 will no longer be allowed to use adult swimming pools in Dubai.

A memo was sent to hotels in the emirate on Thursday by the Health and Safety Department of Dubai Municipality informing them of the new rule.

The new regulations state that people must “ensure children are accompanied by their parents in the swimming pool area and that children, under the age of 5, are not allowed to swim in adult pools”.

Hotels must also ensure an appropriate number of lifeguards are on duty, depending on the size of the pool and the number of people using it.

Lifeguards must be given the correct training and qualifications and are not to be assigned any other tasks “other than rescuing”.

These instructions must also be labelled on a board in a clear place in both English and Arabic.

The National reported in June how the head of Dubai Police’s maritime rescue department saved the life of a girl, 4, at a hotel while off-duty.

Lt Col Ali Al Naqbi was spending the Eid Al Fitr break with his family in an Abu Dhabi hotel when the incident occurred.

“We were at the pool when I spotted the girl sinking and unable to restore balance to keep her head above water,” he said at the time.

He leapt into the pool fully clothed to save the child from drowning.

“She had swallowed some water and vomited part of it into the pool, so I positioned her properly, tilting her head to clear the airway and help her breath right after I pulled her out.”

An Emirati toddler drowned in the swimming pool of a Ras Al Khaimah hotel in January this year.

The previous month saw an Emirati boy and an Ethiopian woman, who was working as the family helper, both drown in the pool of a hotel in the same emirate.