The compliance teams of the Ministry of Health (MOH) have conducted more than 55,000 visits to all types of health facilities across the Kingdom’s regions. These included 15,000 visits to hospitals, 1,054 visits to medical complexes, and over 1,800 visits to cardiology and dialysis centers. Also, more than 25,000 visits were made to pharmaceutical establishments.
MOH said that its daily awareness-raising monitoring visits have been intensified since the beginning of February. They aim to raise the level of compliance of health institutions such as hospitals, complexes, pharmacies, and other health institutions, to ensure they adhere to the preventive and precautionary measures to combat COVID-19. They also ensure that these institutions adhere to the approved health requirements and correct practices to manage this crisis. Furthermore, these visits make sure the requirements are provided for patient safety. MOH added that the tasks of the teams (which are supervised by the Compliance Assistant Agency) will expand to include all quarantines across the Kingdom. At the same time, surveillance visits to public hospitals affiliated to MOH will be intensified. The visits aim to ensure the compliance of these hospitals with the health requirements, sample transfer methods, workers and health practitioners testing, and routine measures elimination to ensure that they are not overcrowded. This would eventually help prevent the transmission of the virus.
These surveillance visits are conducted parallel to similar visits to health institutions in the private sector. Additionally, compliance monitors conduct hundreds of daily visits to pharmacies to ensure their compliance with the measures. They also ensure the availability of face masks, personal protection means, and basic health products, in addition to monitoring their prices in cooperation with the relevant authorities.
MOH revealed that more than 1,000 violations were found and referred to the Violations Committees. Furthermore, over 100 closures were implemented. 25 of them were against hospitals and 55 against medical complexes. Most of those closures are precautionary until the violations are corrected. Many of those institutions are allowed to resume their activity after correcting the violations, with regular financial fines issued against them to make sure such breaches do not occur again.
MOH urged health care providers to adhere to the health requirements stipulated in the health regulations, alongside with the preventive measures adopted in KSA. This comes to preserve the safety of patients and avoid penalties that could amount to a fine of SAR 300,000, closure of the facility, and withdrawing the license of the health institution and practitioners for up to two years.