The Director General of the Executive Office of the GCC Council of Health Ministers Dr. Tawfeeq Ahmed Khoja headed the sixty eighth meeting of the Council's Executive Body at its headquarters in the Embassies Quarter, Riyadh. The meetings which will continue during the period from 27th to 29th April 2008 will review a number of issues, including electronic linkage of information centers in the Gulf countries to the Council of GCC Health Ministers, the achievements in the member states in applying "Rasidoon System", the extent of execution of the joint declaration of diabetes, the national plans for executing the overall Gulf plan for controlling diabetes, the report of the committee on establishing the unified Gulf register for acute coronary vessels syndrome, the opinions of the member countries on activating the 2008 emblem for controlling cardiovascular diseases, the opinions of the member states on the mechanism of activating the Gulf charter for heart health, and the procedures of convening the wide meeting for setting the GCC Integrative Executive Plan (2009-2018).
The meetings will also review the quality of health care and patients safety, including the preparations for convening a GCC conference on health care and patients safety under the emblem "Medical Mistakes are Opportunities for Improvement and Development" during the last quarter of the year 2004 in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Other issues on the agenda include the achievements reached towards consolidating the accreditation programs at the health facilities, the mechanisms of allocating 2009 for promoting primary health care (under execution), the means of effective participation the first international conference on primary health care in Qatar, and the general frame of the sixty sixth conference.
According to Dr. Khoja, the meetings will look into many other issues, including control of nervous diseases, alternative medicine, ethics of health professions, reference centers, combating smoking, health of the elderly, development of health systems and health research, the international GCC health survey, emergency services, school health, dentistry health, blood transfusion services, health legislations, nursery services, drugs and medical equipment, continuous medical education, specialized training, foreign manpower, etc.