The MOH General Supervisor of Health Colleges and Institutes Dr. Ahmed bin Hasan Al-Musailahi said the decision of transferring the health colleges and institutes to the Ministry of High Education has been the initiative of MOH, which has raised a request to the Royal Court for moving the affiliation of the health colleges and institutes to the Ministry of High Education. He said MOH has made the initiative in order to devote all efforts to its major task. "The training sessions of those colleges and institutes shall be held at the MOH hospitals as is the situation now", he said.
Commenting on a statement circulated by some local dailies, in which the Secretary General of the Council of High Education Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Aziz has announced the transfer of 50 colleges and institutes from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of High Education, Dr. Al-Musailahi attributed the reason for such decision to shortages in teaching staff, lack of qualified labs, and poor performance of graduates in the recent years. "The Royal Court has approved the request of MOH, which was submitted a year ago", he said.
Hailing the high professional and academic quality of the graduates of MOH colleges and institutes, Dr. Al-Musailahi said thousands of graduates of both sexes had the honor to work at MOH and other hospitals, thus enabling MOH to realize a high degree of Saudization. "MOH has made requests to the Ministry of High Education to upgrade the level of the certificate provided by those colleges and institutes to B.Sc. degree", he said. "We have also been earnest in strengthening the abilities of the graduates through enrolling them in training courses".
He said MOH has chosen highly qualified staff for supervising the works of those colleges and institutes, the last supervisor being Dr. Khalid Al-Rashud, the former dean faculty of pharmacy at King Saud University. "Those officials exerted great efforts for upgrading the curricula to a level which has been appreciated by experts from inside and outside the Kingdom as well as the committees that paid visits to those colleges and institutes", he said. "Moreover, selection of students for studying at those colleges and institutes has been subject to the standards followed at the universities".
He said the officials at both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of High Education are highly sincere in serving public interest, assisted in such efforts by the great support offered by the government under the guidance of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the Crown Prince, in addition to the close supervision of the Minister of Health. "MOH has been working hard throughout the last fifteen years for attaining the goal of creating qualifying and trained manpower to cover the shortages in the different health fields", he said.