His Excellency the Minister of Health, Eng. Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, has extended the deepest condolences of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, to the Indian Government and People, on the passing away of some Indian pilgrims in the tragic Mina stampede incident, which took place this Hajj season.
This came during Al-Falih’s meeting yesterday afternoon at his ministerial office in Jeddah, with His Excellency the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, Dr. Vijay Kumar Singh, and his accompanying delegation.
Al-Falih highlighted that the Saudi government, under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and His Royal Highness the Deputy Crown Prince, may Allah protect them, is so keen to provide the best health services and healthcare for all pilgrims, since their arrival to the Kingdom and until their departure to their countries safely. “The Ministry of Health (MOH) works by leaps and bounds around the clock, to support and help the visiting delegations identify the deceased pilgrims from their home countries,” said Al-Falih, indicating that the Ministry also seeks to facilitate transferring the corpses of those pilgrims to their home countries if requested, provide therapeutic services to the injured and inpatients at the hospitals of Makkah, the Holy Sites and Jeddah, and help heads and members of the delegations to visit the patients and injured pilgrims to check on their health. He pointed out that these actions come in line with the gracious royal directives, which underline exerting the utmost efforts to cooperate with the aforementioned delegations.
Within the same vein, Al-Falih has provided the guest minister and his accompanying delegation with the official data and statements, supported by figures and images of the deceased pilgrims; in an endeavor to help the guests identify those pilgrims. Besides, Eng. Al-Falih has presented an accurate statistic on numbers of the sick and injured inpatients at hospitals, names of the hospitals and numbers of the inpatients according to their nationalities; in order to facilitate the guests’ visits to those patients.
For his part, the guest minister has extended the sincere thanks and appreciation of the Indian government to Eng. Al-Falih and the Saudi government, under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, for the Kingdom’s keen interest touched by the Indian pilgrims. It didn’t escape the guest minister’s notice to commend the interest and cooperation of the MOH’s leaders and senior officials, with the Indian delegation members since their arrival to Jeddah, the matter which contributed to relieving the fatigue of their travel, and facilitating their mission to identify the deceased and visit the patients and injured pilgrims.
The meeting was attended from the Saudi part by the Deputy Minister of Health for Therapeutic Services, Dr. Tareef Al-Ama, the Director General of Makkah Health Affairs General Directorate, Dr. Mustafa Buljun, and the Supervisor General of MOH’s Health Services during Hajj and Umrah, Dr. Hussein Ghannam. As for the Indian part, the meeting was attended by the Joint Secretary, Mr. Ajit Gupte, the Assistant Secretary of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Ajay Kumar , the Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Hemant Kotalwar, the Indian Consul General, Mr. Bawa Sayed Mubarak and the Deputy Consul General, Mr. Muhammad Noor Rahman Sheikh.