Yusuf Al-Muhaimeed Al-Jazirah There are ministries that have a heavy burden and huge and numerous portfolios that are difficult to solve except with youthful and ambitious administrative and organizational expertise. This includes the Ministry of Health. It is one of the ministries that one finds difficult where to start. Which portfolio do you start with? Should one start with the employment of youth in health sector? Or by countering epidemic diseases like coronavirus? Or maybe by providing beds for patients? Perhaps one should start by providing clinics and medical specialists sufficient to fulfill the needs within days or a week like the private hospitals and not make patients wait for years. Should the ministry start with reuniting expatriate female nurses with their families? Or continue in the attempt to look into the portfolio on medical insurance for citizens that has been so difficult to solve, to the extent that doubts have arisen about the seriousness and sincerity of the person handling this file? A recent ceremony to launch medical projects that was led by the emir of the Northern Borders and attended by the minister of health was a great opportunity for citizens to meet the minister and present their various complaints. They included demands for transferring an employee in the health sector and a search for a vacant bed, among others. This presented an opportunity for a Saudi young man, who argued with the minister. The man told him that he was the minister and capable of transferring whomever he wants and do anything. This is what is understood due to the nonexistence of a known mechanism and a regulation that governs these matters. What was worse than the citizen's demand was the reply of one of the officials accompanying the minister of health. He said the minister is not a rising sun. That is, he cannot do everything! But who said we want him to do everything himself? We want a unique administrative mentality that will open all the portfolios, tackle the problem from the very roots and then look for possible solutions. Then we should begin carrying out the solutions within a specific and clear timescale so that we are able to question ourselves from time to time on what we have actually accomplished. When was this accomplishment made? Was it actually achieved during the designated period or did we need to extend the execution period? Or did the whole matter get stalled? Many of our problems and missteps in government work are down to administrative and organizational reasons. We do not draw up plans and carry them out and follow up the execution. We fail and lose a lot of money only because we do not follow up matters and due to our lack of sense of responsibility. If the first condition for work was discipline and feeling the responsibility at all job levels, then we would have accomplished a lot. We wouldn't have needed the citizen to beg for his rights from the minister. Nor would there be an official accompanying the minister who talks arrogantly about him before others and tries to convince us that he is not a rising sun. When the successful administrator hears such expressions, he will realize that he is before a very centralized official, who does not accept delegating authority and responsibility to other employees so that he devotes his time and effort to sensitive decisions that are effective in the course of work. Decentralized work and delegating authority to deputies and undersecretaries causes work to progress well without the need for a minister with the post of a rising sun.
