JEDDAH, 22 March 2006 — The General Nursing Administration at the Ministry of Health launched yesterday the National Program for the Implementation of Nursing Standards, Policies and Procedures in hospitals and health centers.
At the Training and Scholarship Administration of the Jeddah Health Affairs, Mansour Al-Hawasi, deputy minister of executive affairs, launched the program that aims at standardizing and improving the scientific and clinical abilities of nurses at all health facilities.
“This comes in accordance with the goals and strategies of the General Administration for Nursing Development to improve and raise the standards of nursing by putting the basic policies and procedures for administrators and technicians working in the nursing field,” said Abdulrahman Al-Hakami, co-chairman of the Nursing Standard Organizing Committee at the Ministry of Health.
The goals include reducing nursing mistakes, unifying administration policies, raising the standards of nursing care and updating it in accordance with international scientific developments on methods and technology.
The Nursing Standard Organizing Committee, formed two years ago, completed the implementation plan, which consists of the data gathering and analysis stage, the execution stage and the evaluation stage.
During the past two years, the committee reviewed the sources available at some public and private hospitals in the Kingdom, the General Administration of Health Centers, books on international primary health care centers, and Internet websites of international institutions specialized in nursing in Canada, US, Europe and Australia. The committee then formed a draft that was reviewed by the Quality Development Program in the Makkah Region for a final version presented to an expert from the World Health Organization for commendation.
At the execution stage a plan has been put in place. It includes workshops for training nurses and a follow-up committee for implementing the program in all the regions. An overall evaluation program will be conducted in the whole Kingdom and a website will be created for connecting all the regions to update and continue working on these standards.
At a press conference following the launching ceremony, Al-Hawasi said that nursing among males is almost 100-percent Saudi, but among women, there is still a shortage of Saudi women entering the profession.
As for complaints of shortage of beds in public hospitals in Jeddah, he assured that two big hospitals are being established and other major projects and expansions under way would solve the problem within three years. With regards to reports of privatizing public hospitals, he said that a study on the issue is under way and the idea is not privatizing per say but providing the best care for the least cost.
