The Ministry of Health (MOH), as represented by its Assistant Agency for Hospital Affiars, has launched, earlier this week, the "On-Duty Neonatal Consultant via Phone Service" for all the regions and provinces of the Kingdom in order to boost performance level and unify work processes of neonatal units and sections.
Meanwhile, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Health for Hospitals Affairs, Dr. Nehar Al-Azmi, said that this services is directed only to physicians, as MOH has assigned 10 on-duty neonatal consultants to provide this 24/7 service, and offer medical consultations in neonatology via a toll-free phone number given to the heads of these sections. He pointed out that this service is directed to physicians to request early consultation in the event of unavailability of a consultant to deal with the high-risk cases which necessitate providing third-level care.
Within the same vein, he said that this service covers high-risk and critical neonatal cases; especially those in need of any type of high-frequency respiration, whether normal or artificial, or in need of nitric oxide treatment, or those who are in need of any kind of surgical intervention. That is to be added to the neonates who are underweight or less than 1800 gm, or those with very small gestational age less than 23 weeks who are in need of continuous and comprehensive medical support.
Concluding, Dr. Al-Azmi underlined that MOH is always seeking to develop and improve therapeutic services provided in the hospitals, particularly the emergency and critical cases and the life-threatening cases, in line with the MOH's trends aimed to serve patients, gain their satisfaction and maintain their health and safety.