The Ministry of Health is waiting to receive its 2010 budget allocation in order to conduct a comprehensive study of where the funds will go, but they will be used to build eight new hospitals and rehabilitate 19 others across the Kingdom, said Abdullah Al-Rabeah, Minister of Health. The minister was speaking during the inauguration of a number of development projects at King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saturday. The projects being inaugurated included the new ICU, e-library, IT department, new administration buildings, and storage units. Three new operation theaters will be opened soon, taking the number of theaters at the hospital to 15. Out-patient clinics will be expanded to 60 examination rooms supported by service rooms, waiting rooms, pharmacies, labs, and eye banks, and a small operation theater. The new projects of the ministry will be announced once the new budget has been reviewed. King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital has signed a strategic partnership with Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, the minister said. The partnership, which was approved by the King, has come to help develop health care services in the Kingdom, he said. The two health centers will focus on the exchange of knowledge and experience, joint research, training, and the application of international quality and safety standards. A group of specialist doctors from Wilmer Institute will be assigned to work at King Khaled Hospital in positions, such as, director and head of department with the rank of professor and associate professor. They will conduct major research with the hospital's doctors, “which will lead, Allah willing, to the discovery of the causes and treatment of many eye diseases in the Kingdom,” Al-Rabeah said. Director of King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital Dr. Abdullah Al-Tuarqi said that “the hospital has a reputation for providing high-quality medical services. It has gained in 25 years the accreditation of several international health care bodies including JCIA and JCAHO and the membership of the HPH, and it ranks 225th out of 17,261 hospitals around the world.” “Wilmer Eye Institute is one of the largest institutions of eye medicine in the United States. It has a 130-member teaching staff and is a pioneering institute in research, training and patient care. The institute has trained over 100 doctors who head eye departments in many countries,” he said. Chief Executive Officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine Edward Miller said, “we at Johns Hopkins think the agreement will result in successful cooperation in education and research and in improving health care for eye patients.”
