Laura Bashraheel Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — The Health Affairs Department in Jeddah held an open forum at King Fahd Hospital on Tuesday with citizens in an attempt to communicate with them and hear their complaints. Director of Health Affairs Dr. Sami Badawood said the annual meeting was a way to hear people's concerns. The meeting discussed the main concern of establishing health centers in neighborhoods such as east Jeddah. One of the complaints concerned allocating land to build health centers and not starting the projects. Others complained about the lack of services at King Fahd Hospital and red tape. Delays in appointments, not following up with patients, wrong diagnoses, and a shortage of beds and rooms in the hospitals were some of the other complaints. One man said: “In 1430AH (2008/09), the Ministry of Health had chosen a building for a health center east of the Haramain highway in Jeddah but it has not opened the center yet.” According to his complaint, it has been five years since the building was acquired and nothing has happened. Some people expressed concern over the recent case of a girl, Reham, who was infected with HIV in Jazan after a blood transfusion. Badawood said the Ministry of Health has doubled its efforts to prevent such incidents happening again. “The ministry has established a central regional blood bank in Jeddah for blood donations that will open very soon, plus we have two teams at the Dallah center to collect donated blood. “We understand the issue of blood shortages and we are working on it.” He said hospitals now would take extra care and use new technology to test blood and know whether it is infected or not straight away. Badawood said: “HIV doesn't manifest itself from the first day but with new technologies we will be able to know immediately if the blood is infected or not.” Badawood also said the Health Ministry is working on establishing dentist centers after a member of the public at the meeting complained that government hospitals lacked good dental services and waiting lists for appointments were up to six months long. Compounding the problem, Syrians who come on an Umrah visa and do not have residency are allowed to be treated at government hospitals due to the ongoing unrest in their country, he said. Many people who attended the meeting complained about the bad services at King Fahd Hospital. One man said: “Do we have to shout and threaten in order to be seen by a doctor or get an appointment at King Fahd Hospital?”
