A conference on the role of social care for long-term patients, which recently concluded at King Abdulaziz Hospital in Jeddah, also recommended the establishment of a society for social medical services in Makkah province.

Director of information, health awareness and public relations at Jeddah’s health affairs department, Abdul Rahman bin Saad Al-Sahafi, told Arab News on Monday that the conference, attended by a number of medical specialists and doctors, called for the building of special shelter homes for patients with terminal diseases to reduce the burden on hospitals.

According to official statistics, about a quarter of beds in government hospitals in the Kingdom are occupied by patients with chronic illnesses.

The conference called for initiating new programs that would satisfy the needs of this group of patients, who often refuse to leave hospitals, and said the private sector, welfare societies and nongovernmental organizations must help achieve this.

Al-Sahafi said the conference called for the establishment of branch units in each hospital’s social medical services department to deal with long-term patients who refuse to be discharged.

These units should help create programs that provide psychological and social stability for patients and their families, the conference recommended.

The conference, which concluded last week, called for training medical professionals so they were better equipped to deal with patients with chronic illnesses.

It also called for awareness campaigns to help society accept the idea of home care for the old, disabled and patients with terminal diseases.

There should be lectures in schools, mosques and other domains to inculcate the idea of home care for long-term patients, which is an Islamic concept, experts at the conference said.

The conference asked all those working in the health sector to come up with innovative ideas to reduce the rising number of chronic patients not willing to leave hospitals.