The Executive Board of the Ministry of Health (MOH) has approved the action plan of the National Program for Behavior Growth and Autism Disorders. The program is designed to provide an integrated and high-quality package of advanced and specialized services in the domains of diagnosis, treatment, early intervention, training, and rehabilitation for disorders of growth and behavior among children.
This move came during a meeting held on Wednesday under the chairmanship of the Health Minister Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Rabeeah, where a number of recommendations have been suggested to develop the program. Such recommendations included renting growth disorder centers in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam as a first stage, allocating medical teams to handle growth and autism disorders, approving units for diagnosis and early intervention as an important strategy during the next phase, launching a diploma for the rehabilitation of staff in the fields of behavior growth disorders and autism, and allocating mobile clinics to serve the program. The ministry is currently working on the purchase of growth disorder services from the private sector, which has a deeply-rooted experience in providing such kind of services according to the global quality standards.
The Executive Board has also approved the Leadership Preparation Program, which aims to find the outstanding cadres and rehabilitate them through a highly-professional scientific approach. This step comes as part of the MOH's efforts to create productive and influential leaders in the health field.
The meeting tackled also a number of other topics on the agenda, atop of which are the 1435/1436H-budget, as well as the plan of training and rehabilitating the Information Technology (IT) staff in regions and hospitals; that is to be added to establishing a general department for property in the organizational structure of both the MOH and health directorates.
Moreover, Dr. Al-Rabeeah has urged MOH senior officials and employees to exert every effort to improve the performance of health services, in such a manner that contributes to providing health care to those in need, maintaining the health and safety of every citizen, and putting the MOH's motto: “Patient First” into effect; in a quest of serving a patient and gaining his satisfaction. This step comes within the framework of MOH's efforts to achieve the directives of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, May Allah protect him, to keep the people of this beloved country healthy.
The health practitioners were also urged to take advantage of the programs launched recently by the MOH, atop of which are the UpToDate service and the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Earlier, Dr. Al-Rabeeah has launched the Health Award: “Create& Inspire”, which aims to come up with ideas and creative projects, and to promote the culture of community participation, through a community contest.