His Excellency the Minister of Health, Dr. Abdullah bin AbdulAziz Al Rabeeah, asserted that the Ministry is considered a supporter and a strategic partner of the private health sector in providing health services. His Excellency refuted the claims that the Ministry’s involvement is a competition with the private sector. He pointed out that the Ministry introduced the concepts of the private sector, technology transfer, and qualitative services such as dialysis and long stay; which stand out as a great indication and a significant factor of a strategic partnership between the two sectors.
This came in on Tuesday during the press statement Dr. Al-Rabeeah made at his meeting with a constellation of private sector representatives. The meeting was held at the Grand Meeting Auditorium of the Ministry of Health (MOH).
Dr. Al-Rabeeah affirmed that the Ministry of Health strongly believes in its long-term partnership with the private sector, indicating that there are shared programs conducted by both sectors to optimally benefit from the integration of private and public health sectors.
He called upon private sector investors to adopt a greater level of organization and coordination of work with the Ministry than the status quo. He also called for communication with decision-making health councils and committees in a way that insures a clear vision of comprehensive national aspirations by communicating with the Ministry of Health and other health sectors. In addition, he called for contribution to building successive developments and strategies in all health sectors, insuring the provision high quality and patient safety services; in order to come up with an integrated health system.
Concerning the facilities provided by the Ministry of Health for those keen on investing in the private health sector, Dr. Al-Rabeeah indicated that there is a great interest in this respect as the Ministry formed a new agency assigned for this matter; which is the Assistant Agency for Health Economics. Its prominent objective is founding a health industry set on clear basis that goes hand in hand with the government’s approaches and policies.
His Excellency clarified that the meeting held with the private health representatives aims at informing them of what is going on in the Ministry; in terms of the various plans, programs and strategies, in a way that would benefit the private health sector, as well as paving the way for wider cooperation between the Ministry’s sectors. That would beneficially serve the interest of the private sector as well as the Kingdom in general.
For his part, the Deputy Minister of Health for Planning and Development, Dr. Mohammad bin Hamza Khoshaim, revealed that the Ministry aspires in its ninth developmental plan to multiply the number of bed capacity from 30,000 beds to 66,000beds. He indicated that the Ministry, over the past four years, has operated 4 mental health hospitals with a capacity of 200 beds for each hospital to be added to 17 hospitals being built currently. Thus, the total is more than 5000 beds all over the Kingdom; considering this type of hospitals is a problem faced by the Ministry since the demand for such hospitals is on the increase because the private sector does not offer services in this specialty in an integrated manner.
Dr. Khoshaim added that the Ministry has 2199 health centers. The target is to reach 3000 health centers to serve citizens wherever they are.
It is worth mentioning that the meeting included a presentation given by the MOH Assistant Deputy Minister for Training and Scholarship, Dr. Mohammed Zamakhshari, of the MOH Strategic Plan. Also, Dr. Abdullah Al-Wehaibi previewed MOH e-Transactions projcects. The audience listened to an elaborate account of “My Referral Program” (Ehalati), yet to be adopted by the Ministry, given by Dr. Khalid Al-Hussein.