Hamad Al-Mane, Minister of Health, expressed indignation over the slow progress of work at the North Jeddah Hospital project of which only 43 percent had been completed by Thursday while the project is supposed to be handed over complete in 2009. Following his inspection tour of the project on Thursday, the Minister urged the construction company carrying out the project to double its efforts to complete the project within one year. The total capacity of the health facility, which will be a specialist hospital, is 500 beds and its cost is estimated at SR240 million. Al-Mane inspection tour included several health care projects in Jeddah, including the East Jeddah Hospital being constructed at a cost of SR241 million. The progress in this hospital has, however, reached about 11 percent in less than a year. The tour also included King Abdul Aziz Hospital and Tumor Center where the minister inaugurated the expansion of the emergency room, the new Kidney Center and the Lung Resuscitation Department. He also inspected the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Department, the operations theater and visited the Tumor Center. The minister then visited the complex for forensic medicine, morgue and toxicology and officially inaugurated it at noon on Thursday. The complex comprises a central morgue in addition to departments for forensic medicine, postmortem examination (autopsies), radiology and laboratories. Al-Mane then toured the Diabetes Center that has recently been built at a cost of SR5 million. He was briefed on the undergoing renovation of the wards of the Mental Health Hospital, before moving to the King Fahd General Hospital where he visited the Emergency Tower project that is being established at a cost of SR65 million, with 12 percent of the project currently completed. In a statement, Dr. Khalid Al-Marghalani, spokesman of the Ministry of Health, said the minister promised to complete the North Jeddah Hospital Project within one year including construction and fully equipping the facility. Speaking on the minister's visit to the King Abdul Aziz Hospital and Tumor Center and the expansion of the Tumor Center, which receives 66 percent of cancer patients in the region, Marghalani said the center provides excellent services and receives over 1200 new cases annually. The number of hospitalized cases has reached 4000, the outpatient clinics have received 10,000 cases, 7500 cases are receiving chemotherapy, 16,000 are receiving curative radiological treatment and over 2000 are being treated with nuclear medicine annually.
