Fatima Muhammad
JEDDAH — A female Shoura Council member has won the support of 88 of her colleagues in the council for a proposal to restore the status of Riyadh's King Khalid Eye Specialist Hospital (KKESH) as an independent institution with a free budget away from the umbrella of the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Selwa Al-Hazzaa said only 44 members opposed her proposal. Al-Hazzaa, a consultant ophthalmologist at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, told Saudi Gazette that the move was crucial since the condition of the hospital deteriorated after came under the Ministry of Health.
She said she had received her training at the hospital, which was one of the leading health institutions in the country at the time. "This is not the case now. During the past 15 years the hospital's services have deteriorated and there are long waiting lines for appointments," she said.
Al-Hazzaa explained that some patients who underwent successful eye operations had their conditions deteriorate because they could not get appointments for follow-up visits. She pointed out that patients might need to wait for more than a year to get an appointment at the hospital.
"There are cases that can’t wait for so long, including patients suffering from cataract and glaucoma, which might lead to blindness if not followed up properly," said Al-Hazzaa.
Another critical case is squint in children, which requires close follow-up visits, she added.
Al-Hazzaa suggested that the KKESH with Jeddah Eye Hospital and Eye Specialist Hospital in Dhahran should be brought under one independent umbrella with own board of directors.
The Shoura Council's health affairs committee objected to the proposal, citing two reasons. It said there are no independently-run eye hospitals in any country but Al-Hazzaa said the UK, the US, Japan and India have several such hospitals.
Secondly, the committee said eye patients already suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes should be treated in hospitals where they have access to doctors in different specializations.
Al-Hazzaa said a cataract patient, for example, does not need the services of other specialists because ophthalmologists are trained to deal with such situations.
Though the health affairs committee objected to Al-Hazzaa's proposal, she managed to get 88 out of 132 registered votes backing her. "This is a victory for the patients," she said.
