Abdullah Al-Dahhas

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

 

MAKKAH — The Ministry of Social Affairs has earmarked SR250 million to implement the royal decree ordering the government to bear the cost of rehabilitating and training children with special needs at private daytime rehabilitation centers.



Khaled Al-Thibaiti, the ministry's spokesman, said the ministry will start making the payments to the centers after the end of the current academic semester after all necessary regulatory procedures have been completed.

The spokesman said the private centers would be looking after about 2,000 children with special needs, out of a total of 6,332 such children all over the Kingdom.



“The program is aimed at encouraging the private sector to participate in taking care of the disabled children, rehabilitating them and providing them with the skills that will make them useful members of society,” he said.



Al-Thibaiti said the program would cover children aged 3-14 with severe or medium disabilities.



He said teams from the ministry would conduct inspection tours of the centers and meet with the parents to make sure that their children are receiving proper attention.



“We will also check the safety of the buildings and ensure they are in total compliance with the safety terms and conditions set by the Civil Defense,” he said.



The Ministry of Education has allocated an annual budget of SR7.5 million to treat 138 Saudi special needs children at a specialist center abroad because of insufficient rehabilitation facilities in the Kingdom.