The Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced launching (support Offices) program. This type of offices provides logistic services to special-needs, senior and home medicine patients, as from parking lots for persons with parking permits, through opening the medical record, getting appointments, moving around the health facility, to obtaining medical reports; to improve the delivery mechanism of services and enhance patient independence.
According to MOH, this program seeks to make all health facilities special-needs, senior and home medicine patients-friendly, to secure their highest independence by enabling them to adapt with their health environment requirements and developing their self-reliance capacity. This will make them productive members in the community.
This program targets three key groups, including: special-needs persons, with permanent or interim disabilities and who possess disability service cards from the local special-needs service coordination committee, senior individuals who are 65+ years of age, as well as home medicine patients who are classified under physically and mentally disabled persons, CPR, bedridden, chronic cardiac and palliative care patients.
Support Offices feature a number of tasks, including: ensure that the health facility is ready to serve users on daily basis, help them move around the health facility, complete the processes of opening a health record, set appointments, coordinate between patients and the medical team, request reports, help persons with hearing disability communicate with the medical team, prepare service user-related stats, liaise with special-needs service coordination committee to obtain senior/disability low-fare cards and passes, liaise with concerned bodies to obtain assistive tools and priority cards to receive therapeutic services.
It is noted that (Support Offices) have been opened in: King Fahd Hospital - Jazan, King Abdulaziz Hospital of King Abdullah Medical Complex - Jeddah and Prince Mutaib Bin Abdul Aziz Hospital - Al-Jouf. On the other hand, East Jeddah Hospital and Arar Central Hospital are ready to launch the program.
