As part of the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) preparations for this year's Hajj season, the ministerial Hajj Training Committee will hold 93 specialized training courses and workshops, targeting 6,672 of the MOH employees, who were assigned to work in the 1436H-Hajj season.
The Director General of Training and Scholarships, and the Head of the Hajj Training Committee, Dr. Mansour Al-Yami, has pointed out that these training programs target the Hajj operating committees, including the Public Health Committee, Infection Control Committee, Technical Supervision of Hospitals and Health Centers Committee, Emergency and Field Medicine Committee, Nursing Committee at the Assistant Agency for Supportive Services, Hajj Training Committee, Laboratories and Blood Banks Committee, Statistics Committee and Inventory Control Committee.
Within the same vein, a large number of these training courses have been designated to deal with cases of sunstroke and heat stress as this year is expected to witness a wave of high temperatures. Hence, 11 training courses have been held for 750 physicians and nurses, assigned to work at the Holy Sites hospitals and health centers, to train them on how to deal with cases of sunstroke, heat stress and the most common diseases and injuries during Hajj.
As for the public health and food safety domain, the Hajj Training Committee will organize 12 training courses for 530 physicians, nurses and epidemiology supervisors, to train them on epidemiological surveillance, preventive procedures to prevent the Hajj-related communicable diseases (such as meningitis and viral fevers), environmental surveillance of the outbreaks of food-borne diseases and the good management of medical waste at health facilities. In addition, the employees assigned to work at the border crossings will be trained on the basics of health monitoring of border crossings during mass gatherings. Besides, the aforementioned Committee will hold 8 training courses for 520 health professionals, to train them on applying the precautions against infection and epidemics spread.
With regard to the laboratories and blood banks domain, 6 training courses will be held to train 400 employees assigned to work at laboratories and blood banks, on ways of sampling, collecting, transfusing, and processing blood, as well as applying work procedures at the medical laboratories.
In the fields of therapeutic services, mass gathering medicine and emergency, the aforementioned Committee will organize 12 training courses for 280 physicians and nurses, to train them on the rapid intervention for the treatment of critical cases among adults, using health simulation and sorting of the emergency cases (TRAIAGE). Moreover, 22 training courses will be held for 2,302 physicians, nurses and emergency and ambulance technicians, working at emergency sections; to train them on how to handle common emergency cases during the Hajj season; that is to be added to 8 training courses, that will be held to train 1,600 nursing staff, assigned to work at hospitals in the Holy Sites, on how to deal with critical cases.
Finally, concerning the statistics and management domain, the Hajj Training Committee will organize 13 training courses for 260 officials, who are in charge of statistics and data registration at statistics sections in health affairs directorates, hospitals and medical centers, to train them on the way of coding causes of death and various diseases, and the correct procedures for data registration in the Hajj statistical system. Furthermore, one training course will be held for the members of the inventory control supervisory committee, to train them on the work nature of the supervisory committee during the Hajj season.