Al-Qurayyat Health Affairs General Directorate pointed out that the number of patients referred to specialized hospitals throughout the Kingdom amounted to 3,717 cases in 2016; as 3,090 cases were accepted, while other 627 cases were rejected for various reasons. The cases varied as follows: 2,370 cases have been given appointments at outpatient clinics, while 230 cases have been hospitalized, in addition to 490 emergency and life-saving cases. Besides, a number of 120 samples have been referred to specialized laboratories.
The Directorate highlighted that most number of referrals were to surgery specialization (amounted to 980 cases), while the lowest number were to public surgery specialization (amounted to 23 cases), and the average number were to pediatric cardiac surgery section (amounted to 256 cases).