According to Jazan Health Affairs, Prince Muhammad bin Nasser Hospital, since the inauguration of the cardiac surgery department in 2014, has conducted over 120 open-heart surgeries. This comes as part of a prescribed plan to localize heart surgery services in the region. The service was introduced in 2014 when a medical team of 10 physicians of different specialties (surgery, anesthesia and ICU) have performed 15 open-heart surgeries, and in collaboration with Jazan University the total number of surgeries, until this year 2018, amounted to 120 open-heart surgeries for adults. Then, the Affairs, in collaboration with Prince Sultan Cardiac Center- Al-Qassim, has launched the second stage of heart surgeries for children. So far, 25 heart surgeries were performed including open-heart surgeries and interventional catheterization procedures for children.
These steps come in line with MOH's efforts to achieve one of its objectives in the National Transformation Program (NTP) 2020, in terms of improving the health care provided before hospitalization and at emergency and ICU departments of main hospitals. Also, this goal, which is associated with one of the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030, is to improve the quality of both preventive and therapeutic healthcare services.