A host of challenges awaits health minister

Saudi Gazette report RIYADH — Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, who has assumed his new portfolio as health minister, started his duties on Sunday with intensive and continuous meetings with senior officials at the ministry. He will be facing numerous challenges and big responsibilities to correct the ministry's many deep-rooted problems to create a better health environment. Observers are unanimous that Rabiah has scored a number of successes as commerce minister but they believe that the Ministry of Health is another story. They say Rabiah has moved from a ministry responsible for a limited number of sectors to a ministry supervising more than 2,500 health facilities. They say the minister, who was until now dealing with affluent businessmen and traders, will now be listening to the moans of patients. According to the observers, the grave challenges facing the minister include uplifting the medical services in hospitals and health centers, distribution of consultants and specialists and nationalizing the technical jobs. Rabiah will have to face the challenge of establishing specialist hospitals in remote areas whose residents travel to major cities such as Riyadh and Jeddah in search of advanced treatment. The minister will also have to put an end to the rampant medical malpractice, which has eroded citizens' confidence in public hospitals. The hundreds of health centers that provide curative and preventive services are suffering from disorganization and chaos. They also lack various medical specializations including, among others, gynecology and dentistry. The minister has to put them in order. He has to reactivate a plan to establish about 2,000 new health centers, which has been on hold for many years. The minister will also have to deal with the acute shortage of beds particularly in the intensive care units and will have to close down once and for all the files of some epidemic diseases such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and dengue fever. Rabiah, who used to visit luxurious centers in cities and big towns as commerce minister, will now have to visit rundown health centers in remote areas and in some cases on the tops of mountains. A number of hospitals are located in old and cracking buildings. The minister will have to do something in this respect. The new minister will also have to deal with the thorny issue of medial insurance for Saudi citizens. In a nutshell, Rabiah is taking over the reigns of a ministry which was described as the graveyard of ministers.