SAUDI ARABIA

Manpower in MOH hospitals requires advanced training

November 29, 2017

Saudi Gazette



Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH
— The Health Ministry will convert all its hospitals into government companies, said Dr. Khalid Al-Shibani, director of the National Transformation Program at the ministry.

“The new companies will form specialized teams for supervision, care and training,” he said, adding that the present manpower at hospitals required advanced training and rehabilitation.

Al-Shibani said the new companies would operate hospitals like the private sector to improve efficiency and quality of services, thus creating competition with other health service providers.

“The new focus will be on patients and they will enjoy the difference in healthcare services,” Al-Shibani said while speaking to Al-Hayat Arabic daily.

He disclosed plans to handover some newly constructed hospitals to the private sector for operation. “There are some new hospitals, whose construction work has been completed but are not functioning yet. We are thinking of handing them over to the private sector to run,” he said.

Al-Shibani said private sector has already participated in designing these hospitals. “There are small programs such as X-rays and lab services. We want private firms to help us improve our services in these areas by being part of government hospitals and companies,” he added.

Speaking about human resources in the healthcare sector, he said most workers required intensive training and upgrading of knowledge and skills to carry out their services efficiently.

Al-Shibani indicated the ministry›s plan to decentralize decisions by giving hospitals more powers to provide better services to patients. “This will create fair competition between hospitals and other sectors under the Health Ministry,” he said.

The focus of healthcare in the past was on health centers and hospitals. Now the focus will shift to human beings, he said. “We have to provide people with preventive care to protect them from diseases. If they become ill we have to provide them with intensive care without exacerbating their condition,” he added.

Al-Shibani emphasized the need to provide quality healthcare to citizens and expatriate residents.

“We want to bring about a revolutionary change in health care for maternity and childcare, emergency services, surgery and other important areas,” he explained.

“We want to develop a new mechanism to reduce the number of patients waiting for diagnosis, treatment and admission in our hospitals,” he said while stressing the need to work as one team by hospitals, doctors and paramedical staff.

He said the National Transformation Program has set out the Kingdom›s future healthcare plan. “We need to create necessary systems and we have to manage healthcare facilities properly and efficiently, making optimum use of available human resources and facilities.”

Al-Shibani indicated the ministry›s plan to provide healthcare services through medical insurance and apply modern technology to improve the services.

“We have started implementing a new healthcare system in different regions of the country,” he said.


November 29, 2017
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