MAKKAH: The Ministry of Social Affairs has allocated SR65 million for the construction of a sanitarium for convalescing mental patients in Makkah, according to a source at the branch of the ministry in the city. The number of mental patients in Makkah has been on the increase over the past few years.
“Careful convalescing is essential for the proper healing of mental patients or else there is the likelihood of their relapsing,” Dr. Rajab Barsaili, director of the Shahar Mental Health Hospital in Taif, told Arab News yesterday. The sanitarium would also prevent the chance of recovered mental patients being exploited by drug peddlers and other antisocial elements, Dr. Barsaili said.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has also allocated SR40 million for the construction of an integrated rehabilitation center in Qunfudah and SR35 million each for two orphan villages in Jeddah and Makkah. Jeddah will receive another SR10 million for the construction of a social insurance office while the women’s social insurance office in Makkah will receive SR5 million. The Turbah social development center has been allocated SR15 million. The new allocations also include SR8 million for the repair and additions to the rehabilitation center in Taif.
The total allocations of the ministry in Makkah province are in excess of SR213 million.
The ministry intends to launch several new projects in Jeddah over the next five years, the source at the ministry said. The projects include two daycare centers, a social counseling center for girls and a charity guesthouse, a social protection house and an elderly care center. The ministry is also prepared to build centers for baby care, girls’ care and women’s rehabilitation if land is made available.
Over the years, the ministry’s branch in the province has set up several charitable institutions including the Widad Charity Society, the Ehsan and Social Support Society, the Women’s Charitable Society and the Social Support Society in Makkah, Friends of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients’ Society, the Society for Productive Family and the Society for Family Protection in Jeddah, the Al-Birr Charity Society in Bani Yazeed, and the Women’s Inventiveness Society and the Abrar Charitable Society in Taif.
Several new charitable development committees have also been set up under the ministry’s branch in Al-Laith and Kamil.
