His Excellency the Minister of Health, Dr. Tawfiq Al Rabiah, has extended his deep thanks to businessmen for their humanitarian initiatives through restoring and equipping medical centers and several health programs. He also has expressed his appreciation to Sheikh Abdullah Saad Al Rashid for bearing the cost of building an integrated medical rehabilitation center with 200-bed capacity over an area of 100,000m2. The center features departments for functional and physical therapy, communication disorder, prostheses, prosthetic devices, in addition to rehabilitating visually impaired individuals in Al-Ahsa.
From his part, Dr. Al Rabiah said, “These initiatives boost people’s enthusiastic and productive feelings, mainly given such dedication and benevolence to serve our community and to boost it to provide distinctive health services, in terms of time-to-service, effort and cost. This will help improve and develop our beloved country in all fields, including the health sector.”
This was stated during his presence in the Non-profit Health Sector Forum organized on Thursday in Riyadh, whereby MoH seeks to have effective productive communication with all components of the non-profit health sector to ensure integration, performance development and extensive impact.
“The Saudi 2030 Vision aspires to increase the share of non-profit health sector from 0.5% today to 5%. In light of this enthusiasm and spirit, this will be a reality, Allah willing. We have seen such unique enthusiasm and interest of all, each according to his means. Hence, we’ve introduced the community partnership program which offers all facilities and support to everyone wishing to contribute to development. Today, we’ve signed 7 agreements valued at more than SR 250M. By Allah’s Grace, these are only part of 20 agreements signed over the past months, some of which have been materialized, while other are still in process. Also, some 20 creative and outstanding charitable organizations have taken part in the forum. This marks a great value added to the non-profit health endeavors by providing treatment, education and services to those in need.”, added Dr. Al Rabiah.
“In the same vein, community partnership has helped conduct 4,000 operations; thus, reducing waiting time in several hospitals across the Kingdom. This also helped boost health services. In fact, we have a spacious horizon an aspiration ahead, with a highly promising future, Allah willing.”, stressed the Health Minister.
The forum featured a series of statements. Including a presentation on MoH’s community partnership program. Then, the Health Minister signed a number of agreements and community partnerships valued at SR 250M, featuring an integrated medical rehabilitation center in Al-Ahsa, with 200-bed capacity over an area of 100,000m2. The center includes departments for functional and physical therapy, communication disorder, prostheses, prosthetic devices, in addition to rehabilitating visually impaired individuals (SR 200M). The agreements also cover restoring the buildings of Hassan Al-Afalek Hospital and increasing its capacity to 80 beds (SR 18M), supporting the (Aorta) - watin - Project to boost blood donation and connect blood donors with blood banks (SR 5M), building and equipping a 20-bed capacity renal dialysis department at Al-Zulfa General Hospital (SR 4M), training 3000 students and faculty in 2018, taking part in all educational and awareness programs across the Kingdom and providing educational services on diabetes and drugs, while developing an application, preparing mobile educational health convoys on obesity and walking, in addition to a weight-loss contest across the Kingdom.
The forum also included several scientific sessions and workshops, including: the role of non-profit health sector in the new healthcare model, developing tools and programs to provide non-profit treatment, the experience of Help Center in Jeddah, the national strategy on health volunteering, the professional volunteering of health practitioners, the experience of Al-Kawthar Organization in health volunteering, social leadership in health, the experience of Kanaf Society in health insurance, marketing in non-profit health sector, organization of health awareness campaigns, the humanitarian design of health programs and the community partnership in public hospitals (Rahim at King Fahad Medical City, Trabut at King Fahad Specialist Hospital, King Faisal Specialist Hospital, King Abdullah Medical City-Makkah, as well as the community responsibility of private health facilities (Almoosa Specialist Hospital as a model). Alongside the forum, an exhibition was held by several charitable organizations collaborating with MoH.
It is worth noting that the forum targets the non-profit health sector across the Kingdom, seeking to help empower and develop that sector, to secure integration, to coordinate all efforts exerted in this regard, and contribute to the community health development objectives.