Besides reporting the progress made by the Ministry of Health in offering its services from time to time, Arab News has highlighted the health problems and has pointed out the health needs of the society.

The Kingdom is a relatively young country, united only since 1932. The health services began with limited resources through small clinics, and gradually became highly sophisticated modern hospitals, medical centers and medical cities. The rapid growth of health services has also been accompanied by a well-planned Saudization process in manpower needed to run such services. This was reflected by investing in scholarships, training courses and finally establishing the Saudi Council for Health Specialties, which provide structured training programs.

The vision of the Ministry of Health is to achieve health as its comprehensive concept at individual, family and community levels, maintaining both the quantity and quality, and to help the elderly and those with special needs by accommodating them in coordination with different health care providers at both private and public sectors. The mission of the Ministry of Health is to provide comprehensive and integrative therapeutic, rehabilitative, and supportive health care in line with Islamic principles and the ethics of health practice. It carries out its mission in a way that satisfies the needs of the patients, their families and the community by upgrading health awareness and attaining justice in distributing health services, whether in quality or quantity in different parts of the Kingdom. The ministry takes care of its employees, provides them training, rehabilitates them, and rewards them for health care services. Article 31 of the Saudi constitution states that the Saudi state is concerned with public health and the provision of health care to patients.

In addition to its state-of-the-art health facilities and services in the Kingdom, the Ministry of Health had successfully overcome the threat of diseases that came from outside the Kingdom. They included Rift Valley fever, dengue fever, bird flu and recently swine flu, which panicked people across the world.

Timely action taken by the ministry helped people protect themselves against the H1N1 virus and those who were affected received early treatment.

According to Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, great improvement in health services have been recorded at the preventive, therapeutic and rehabilitation levels. The average annual number of patients visiting ministry facilities exceeds 60 million, a figure likely to increase to 75 million in the near future.

Today, the Kingdom boasts specialization in the separation of conjoined twins. Under the patronage of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, such twins are successfully separated free-of-charge. The surgery is done at the King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC) in Riyadh under the direct supervision of Health Minister Al-Rabeeah. Some 25 twins have been successfully separated. The twins come to the hospital from countries such as Sudan, Yemen, Egypt, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Iraq, Oman, Cameron, Syria and from various parts of the Kingdom too.

The project of organ transplantation is another feature of the Kingdom’s health sector. Various hospitals perform transplant surgery of such organs as liver, heart, kidney, pancreas and eye through the Saudi Center For Organ Transplantation (SCOT) which was founded by Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman. The Prince Salman Center for Kidney Diseases and the Prince Fahd bin Salman Charitable Society for the Care of Kidney Patients are some of the charitable organizations that treat kidney patients in the Kingdom.

The World Health Organization commended the Kingdom for its successful polio vaccination campaign, which included more than 98 percent of the Kingdom’s children. It has declared certain areas in the Kingdom free of malaria because of the organized campaign against the disease.

The ministry has set up a national plan for combating diabetes in the Kingdom during the 10 years (from 2008 to 2018). The disease affects more than 30 percent of the population in the Kingdom. A national committee as well as work teams have been formed at the MOH level whereas committees and work teams are being formed in each province under the chairmanship of the directors of health affairs. Data regarding diabetic patients are computerized and guidelines for relative health-care personnel are under way.

The annual direct cost of handling the disease is estimated to be about SR8 billion.

The ministry also provides dialysis units in all its hospitals for patients who have reached the End-Stage-of-Renal-Disease (ESRD). There are more than 3,000 dialysis machines in 177 dialysis units, including 30 in the private sector, among the health clinics and hospitals throughout the Kingdom.

The MOH has developed the concept of family physicians for the purpose of providing high quality services. Primary health care is also undergoing development through boosting existing services and introducing new ones. Such developments are based on providing preventive, therapeutic and rehabilitation services through 2000 family and community centers in different parts of the Kingdom. The services provided by each center are based on their geographic location and targeted populations.

Currently in the Kingdom, the doctor-patient ratio is 1:4,000, but the program intends to bring it down to 1:400. Some 50,000 physicians are currently working in the Kingdom. In the primary health-care sector alone, there are 10,000 physicians working in the government, public and private sectors.

Time and again, the ministry organizes special awareness programs on various health subjects such as dental problems, osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes, eye diseases and obesity. These programs help people understand the hazards of the diseases and tell them how the diseases can be avoided. As part of its health education program, the ministry operates a call center during office hours on all working days to assist callers in supplying needed health information on various diseases. In cases of emergency, the center will be open for inquiries 24 hours a day.

Looking after the health of more than two million Haj pilgrims annually is another achievement of the Health Ministry. Its task is to prevent diseases coming into the Kingdom with foreign Haj pilgrims. It informs the Kingdom’s overseas missions to issue visas only if pilgrims fulfill with the quarantine requirements of the Saudi Health Ministry. According to the presence of diseases in their countries, the pilgrims must have vaccinations vaccine against those diseases. However, vaccination against meningitis has been mandatory for all pilgrims visiting the holy cities during the Umrah or Haj periods. Another two million pilgrims come for Umrah throughout the year.

The Ministry of Health continuously and carefully monitors possible epidemic situations at international level, formulates the health instructions to be followed by the pilgrims, and carries out health awareness programs. It exercises maximum preventive measures harnessing the state-of-the-art technology with fully equipped laboratories and skilled manpower. Epidemic surveillance and rapid methods of intervention have been activated for containing epidemics, preventing their transmission and isolating infected cases.

Seven hospitals and 84 health centers provide medical care in the holy cities. With their latest medical equipment, a sufficient supply of drugs and adequate storage of blood as well as highly qualified staff the best services are provided for pilgrims.

A National Health Laboratory has been recently established and it coordinates the activities of the other laboratories and blood banks throughout the Kingdom. Two years ago, the government spent more than SR300 million to update these facilities. The MOH has nine highly equipped centers for detecting poisons and drugs in coordination with the narcotics departments at the Ministry of Defense. The blood banks record around 270,000 blood donors annually. In 2007, 26,000 donors were  awarded medals of merit (class 3) for offering more than 10 blood donations, whereas 500 citizens were given  medals of merit (class 2) for offering more than 50 blood donations.

The laboratories have carried out about 1,000,000 pre-marriage checks, out of which 271,000 checks were carried out in 2008. Saudi Arabia has obtained a number of appreciation certificates from the World Health Organization for its efforts in the field of laboratories and blood banks.

The ministry has added four specialized centers for treating AIDS patients in Aseer, Madinah, Jouf and Ahsa. It has also established 20 consultative optional clinics for those who want to check AIDS confidentially. In addition, 55 centers for detecting TB have been established and another 35 centers are expected to be added in the coming years. In the Kingdom, the potential for curing this disease is 85 percent and its rate of detection is 75 percent.