On Sunday's morning, 9/6/2013, His Excellency the Minister of Health, Dr. Abdullah Abdulaziz Al-Rabeeah inaugurated, at the big celebration Hall, at the Ministry's headquarters, the first stage of the National Program for Diabetes Awareness, carried out by the Ministry of Health (MOH) under the theme "Diabetes.. Be Vigilant to it". It is to last for three years. This is within the MOH's efforts to boost the health awareness for all the community individuals, in addition to targeting the diabetic patients with the proper health awareness.
Meanwhile, his Excellency Dr. Al-Rabeeah, during the inauguration celebration, affirmed that the Ministry of Health is keen on activating the preventive aspects for its being the main pillar of the health care. He also pointed to the importance of jump-starting the awareness health campaigns, working on spreading the health awareness, and boosting all the community individuals' health with all their segments, including the patients. This in turn will have positive impacts on reducing the chronic diseases incidence rates, raising the MOH's efforts to fight these diseases, and curbing its spread, in addition to limiting the patients' complications.
He went on adding that the Gulf region tops the world's states in terms of this disease incidence for several reasons; the most important of which are lifestyle differences, nutritious patterns, and other factors such as smoking and others.
He pointed out that the campaign differs from all the previous campaigns as it is to last for three years and currently the first stage was inaugurated. Therefore, the Ministry of Health was keen on mounting a full awareness campaign and working on detecting all the factors which help spread diabetes. This is for several reasons: first, preventing the disease, spreading awareness for the next generations; to the effect that such a rate is reduced, secondly, educating the patients who suffer from diabetes to reduce and regulate diabetes their sugar level; and in turn reducing the complications of this disease, and the ultimate objective is measuring the sugar level.
Within the same vein, Dr. Al-Rabeeah made clear that this campaign is distinguished with sampling the visions of those benefitting from it, and making sure that the Ministry of Health (MOH) managed to get across this message for the community via the various media channels to every individual, family, and the community as a whole that the diabetes and chronic diseases spread in this time greatly threaten the human being, states' economy; whether they are gulf or world states.
Further, Dr, Al-Rabeeah affirmed that the MOH prioritizes prevention over treatment, as the MOH has the Public Health Agency, which is concerned with preventing from several diseases. Thus, the Ministry of Health (MOH) succeeded in reducing the rates of epidemiological diseases, and currently it works on exhaustive study and field work to reduce the chronic diseases. And during the next months, the MOH is to mount other campaigns as prestigious to reduce the chronic diseases. He went on pointing out that the diabetes is widely spread in the Gulf countries; and the percentages registered in the Kingdom for those over 30 years are as much as 28 percent, and for all age groups as much as 14 percent. This is considered a big percentage.
This Program is part of the health awareness campaigns which the Ministry of Health launched all over the Kingdom; and through the MOH's strategy to improve and develop the health care services at all levels via a fully fledged system of facilities.
In addition to this, this Program is set to boost the health awareness of the diabetes-injured patients, familiarize them with the guidelines and health practices which help control the sugar level and following the healthy patterns. Also, the Program is to provide the patients registered at the Ministry of Health (MOH) with the glucose meters and their accessories in terms of tapes and syringes through the diabetes centers and units spread all over the Kingdom.
It is worth pointing out that this program comes within the framework of the constant awareness campaigns mounted by the Ministry of Health throughout the year. The Programs aims at having the health care officials share its implementation, enabling the diabetic patients to use the treatment instruments, diabetes self care education programs, and via internet training programs, and raising the general awareness for all the Saudi community segments about diabetes. As such, the number of diabetes centers related to the MOH amounts to 20 centers, and currently 8 new centers are being established to recourse for them all over the Kingdom and its governorates.