The Ministry of Health (MOH) stated that it is working to implement an initiative for setting up inpatient wards in public and specialized hospitals (with over 100-bed capacity), based on specific criteria. By virtue of the Royal Decree, stipulating that every public hospital (with over 100-bed capacity) must set up an inpatient ward with 10% of the hospital bed capacity as a first stage, MOH has began to set up one or two inpatient wards in every public hospital across regions and governorates; in an endeavor to integrate mental health services in public and specialized hospitals, facilitate access to them, and reduce stigma impacts.
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.