His Excellency the Minister of Health Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah will open tomorrow (Monday 20th November) the First Patient Relations Symposium, organized by the Ministry of Health under the theme: (Patient First), with the participation of the Minister of Justice, HE Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkareem Al-Issa and the President of Human Rights Commission, HE Dr. Bandar bin Mohammed Al-Ayban, at 8.30AM at Faisaliah Hotel, Riyadh.
This symposium will be held within the framework of the efforts of the MOH to provide the best health services to patients according to the medical norms and policies.
The symposium will focus on the patient relations and related health care issues at the strategic level, and it will discuss the patients' rights as an integral and important aspect of the Patient Relations Department. It also aims to develop the capacity of healthcare staff, and exchange of experiences among the leaders of healthcare in the region.
Thereupon, the MOH representatives and senior management officials from regional hospitals have the opportunity to meet an international spectrum of providers to display their latest products and services. All delegates are either Government representatives or decision makers from hospital chains - actively searching for healthcare solutions for their current and future projects.
The participation of the Ministry of Justice is based on the subject of the symposium on the rights of patients, and the participation of the Human Rights Commission will be a confirmation that the rights of patients are part of a larger human rights framework.
The Patient Relations Symposium is considered the first of its kind in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the Middle East. It will be organized in the framework of the Initiative of the Ministry of Health to spread and promote the culture of Patient Relations.
The symposium will be accredited by Saudi Council for Health Specialties for 14 hours of Continuing Medical Education (CME), and a large number of local and international experts from United States of America, Canada and Europe are expected to attend.
It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Health has developed a regulation enumerating patients' rights, encompassing elderly patients, psychiatric patients and people with disabilities. It also details patients' duties, as well as the rights and duties of the companions of patients.
The Patient Relations Program is reckoned one of the most outstanding programs introduced by the Ministry of Health for serving patients, in a scientific and systematic manner, to examine the complaints, observations and propositions put forward by patients and their families; in addition to developing certain mechanisms to measure the level of patients' satisfaction with the health services provided for them. By analyzing the results, recommendations aiming to further develop performance in health facilities can be made. The Ministry has also introduced patient relations departments into 100% of health affairs directorates and 95% of hospitals, as a number of hospitals are still under construction. The number of patient relations departments throughout the Kingdom is over 1200 employees.