Under the auspices of His Excellency the Omani Minister of Health, Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Obaid Al Saidi, the Secretariat General of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf has organized a workshop on the medical cities in the Gulf countries. The Oman-hosted workshop was organized during the period from Sha'aban 27th-29th 1436H, corresponding to June 14th-16th 2015. The workshop aimed at benefiting from the outstanding experiences in this regard and reviewing the distinctive experiences of the Gulf States in the field of medical cities, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Meanwhile, the National Coordinator of the Saudi Medical Cities Program, Mr. Fallah bin Fahad al-Mazrou, has presented a brief introduction about the beginning of the program in the Kingdom, and an explanation for the specifications of the medical cites, the accomplished targets of the program, as well as its strategy and its most prominent achievements in the Kingdom.
In a similar fashion, he said that the number of the Saudi medical cities registered in the regional network of medical cities amounts to 13 and efforts are underway to register more medical cities respectively. "Our future vision is to continue expanding the program to be applied in all Saudi cities, considering it as a preventive program intended to improve the life in general by improving the environmental, social and economic conditions. Actually, it is one of the programs, which is given utmost importance in the civilized countries," he said.
Al-Mazrou has also reviewed the organizational structure of the medical cities, under which several committees come, and the program-related sectors in the Kingdom, indicating that the program is working to bring health into focus, in addition to achieving sustainable development in the Kingdom and adopting health supporting initiatives. Additionally, he presented a documentary film about the Medical Cities Program, which was acclaimed by the attendance.
It's noteworthy that the Kingdom was represented in this workshop by the Director-General of Environmental and Occupational Health and the National Coordinator of the Saudi Medical Cities Program, Mr. Fallah bin Fahad al-Mazrou, the Director-General of Health Centers and Programs Affairs, Dr. Issam bin Abdullah Al-Ghamdi, and the Supervisor-General of the Saudi Medical Cities Program, Mr. Naif Al-Malki.
For his part, the Director of Health at the Secretariat-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Minister Plenipotentiary, Mohsin bin Mubarak Al Dossary, said that the workshop came out with several recommendations, notably creating a Gulf committee for medical cities to be annexed to the Secretariat General. He noted that these recommendations will be floated during the second meeting of their Excellencies the GCC health ministers, scheduled to be held in Doha in October 2015 to take decisions in this regard.