PEOPLE’S FEEDBACK: King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue Secretary-General Faisal bin Muammar, 2nd left, chairs the fifth preparatory meeting on health services in Qatif on Wednesday. (AN photo by Imran Haider)

QATIF: Saudis were especially vociferous during a National Dialogue meeting on health services, but the vociferousness was from the people who are writing the prescription to address the ailments in the Kingdom’s medical system.

Government officials, health experts, journalists and academics were among the 68 participants at the King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue’s fifth preparatory meeting on health services. Chairing the session on Wednesday was center chief Faisal bin Muammar who is also the country’s deputy education minister. He set the tone for a lively, interactive and highly informative dialogue on the state of the Kingdom’s health services.

“The idea behind these dialogues is to understand the problems of our citizens in a transparent way. We want to hear directly from the people,” he said. “We have people from all sections of society ... We have government officials, businesspeople, teachers, journalists, academics and all of them have a point of view and suggestions to offer regarding health services or the lack of them.”

A large number of women attended the Qatif session. “Almost 50 percent of the participants are women,” Dr. Fahd bin Sultan Al-Sultan, deputy secretary-general of the dialogue center, told Arab News.

“They are sitting in a separate hall and connected via closed-circuit television.” Indeed most of the questions and observations came from the women’s section during the proceedings.

A number of issues and problems were discussed. One was how doctors were being recruited by employment contractors for many hospitals and being fleeced in the process.

“It is a fact that some government and semi-government hospitals in the Eastern Province have given the contract to hire doctors, nurses and maintenance staff to private companies. Since business is involved here, what happens is a doctor who is supposed to be hired for SR12,000 for example is given only SR8,000 or even less. The company that hires him indeed gets SR12,000 from the hospital management for him, but it pockets the rest,” said Merza Al-Khuwaildi of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

“This has led to a lot of problems and disenchantment among medical practitioners. They feel cheated — and why shouldn’t they?”

Through the meeting, the center seeks to document opinions and suggestions in order to forward them to decision-makers. During the deliberations, participants spoke about the lack of emergency services, the need for government support for the private sector, the lack of coordination among government and private sectors, the need for more qualified women specialized in health care services, the need for women security workers to document and follow up domestic abuse cases, and the need for establishing women child-care centers.

Some of the women speakers condemned the lack of qualified medical workers and increasing costs of treatment as well as the problem of medical insurance. Health experts blamed the lack of services on a shortage of medically qualified centers and the dependence on rented buildings as well as on doctors’ pathetically low salaries.

Participants also pointed out that Saudi medical manpower consists of 97 percent medical technicians and only 3 percent medical specialists, leading to an imbalance between specialists and technicians and consequently to medical malfunctions.

Public health officials stressed the importance of training and financing supplied by public and private health sectors as well as citizens in order to guarantee a continuous financial flow.

Prominent among those at the meeting were May Al-Khunaizi, Riyad Al-Mustafa, Nehad Al-Jishi, Abbas Al-Shammasi and Suleiman Abahsain.

The King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue seeks to create a new environment for dialogue among various sections of society with the aim of promoting public interest and consolidating national unity based on Islam and constructive dialogue.

The recommendations of this meeting and previous preparatory meetings in Al-Kharj, Khamis Mushayt, Qurayat and Yanbu will be taken up for final deliberations in Najran early next year before they are passed to the relevant government ministries and departments for consideration and implementation.