Okaz/Saudi Gazette RIYADH/JEDDAH – King Abdullah's directive to establish five medical cities will help achieve a just provision of health services, Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeah, Minister of Health, announced Wednesday. He said the Ministry of Health has designed a plan to double the number of hospital beds in five to seven years. “The Ministry is proud of its medical cities, hospitals and centers and is ready to put these facilities to the test by international assessors to evaluate the quality of services provided by these facilities,” Al-Rabeah said. “We believe that it is important to provide citizens with services similar the ones provided in advanced countries.” He also said that the ministry has cancelled a decision to place four beds in a room to protect the privacy of patients. Dr. Al-Rabeah said the ministry has designed standards to fight infections and modernized its systems to put them on par with international ones. The ministry has also increased the budget of training and scholarship three times to improve the performance of health professionals. “The Ministry constantly coordinates with the Minister of Higher Education to provide programs to our medical staff.” The ministry seeks to refurbish all old hospitals and rebuilt their infrastructures to bring them up to date with new projects being implemented all over Kingdom's regions. Regarding the new appointments of employees outside their regions, Dr. Al-Rabeah said the basic goal is to serve patients but at the same time the ministry cares about the desires of its staff and seeks to make them feel stable in their jobs. Regarding Arar's need for a 500-bed specialist hospital, Dr. Al-Rabeah said the Northern Frontier and all Kingdom's regions are on the ministry's priority list and that high-quality specialist hospitals will be built in all regions. He also addressed the needs of Arar Cardiology Center which currently only conducts heart catheterization procedures due to a lack of medical staff to perform other operations. Al-Rabeah said cardiology centers all over the world need highly-qualified medical staff who can conduct different types of heart operations without jeopardizing the lives of patients. “We'll increase the medical staff based on scientific standards of cardiology centers and we have plans to ensure safety in such centers.” He also rejected claims that the Ministry has cancelled projects and stated that on the contrary, the ministry has added more projects to its budget on a annual basis. “Whoever says we don't have sufficient number of consultants in the Northern Frontier is wrong. The number of consultants here grew from nine to 35. The ministry ensures that all its hospitals and health centers all over the Kingdom have the same quality standards and provide the same quality services to patients.” He also revealed that the ministry is coordinating with the Ministry of Justice to increase the number of medical error committees and reduce the time taken to study medical error cases. However, Dr. Sami Badawood, Director of Jeddah Health Affairs, said the number of beds cited in the report was not accurate and the actual total number of beds in Jeddah Governorate is 7,135 and these beds serve over three million residents. He made the statement on Wednesday at a meeting of the Emergency and Crisis Committee to discuss the National Society for Human Rights' report about the shortage of hospital beds. Dr Badawood said: “The meeting also discussed the mechanism of operating emergency units of the hospitals expected to operate this year, which are North Jeddah Hospital (500 beds), East Jeddah Hospital (300 beds), and the Medical Tower at King Fahd Hospital (270 beds).” __
