“The society will open its own medical center at its headquarters in the city’s Al-Shoukiyyah district to provide medical treatment to patients with chronic diseases,” said the society’s director general, Muhammad Klintin.

He added that the society began functioning by providing medical treatment to patients suffering from chronic diseases at government hospitals.

“We opened a clinic at King Abdul Aziz Hospital in Makkah’s Al-Zahir district to treat patients with diabetes and save them from having their feet or legs amputated,” he said, adding that the society provided the clinic with all necessary medical equipment.

The society also coordinated with the diabetic center at Al-Nur Specialist Hospital in Makkah to train medical staff on ensuring diabetics don’t have their limbs amputated.

Klintin said that — through coordination with the Department of Education in Makkah — the society was able to establish a consultative clinic at Al-Nur’s diabetic center to treat male and female students who have diabetes. “The society also provided students with medicine and other medical equipment,” he added.

The director said the society also launched a program to provide medical, social and psychological care to patients at their homes. “We are currently serving about 80 disabled patients at their homes,” he added. He said the society has three medical teams — each consisting of a doctor, a nurse and a social worker — which visit patients at their homes. “Each team visits five people every day, which brings the total cases the society deals with on a daily basis to 15,” he said.

Klintin said the society also provides physiotherapy to disabled patients at their homes and that the society helps over 400 diabetic children in the holy city.

He said the society's own medical center which will be opened during the coming three months will use the latest medical technology to reduce the number of diabetic ulcers, which causes patients to lose one or more of their limbs. According to him, the well-equipped center will have special units for ophthalmology and cardiology to treat complications that result from diabetes.

"The center will have physiotherapy and dental clinics in addition to laboratories and pharmacies," he added.