- RIYADH: The Health Ministry announced Tuesday it would set up 700 more primary health-care centers over the next five years to cater to the increasing number of patients which has already reached 50 million last year.
Health Ministry Spokesman Dr. Khalid Al-Mirghalani told Arab News, following the meeting of the Third Health Services Council held Tuesday in Riyadh, that the meeting held under the chairmanship of Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah discussed a number of issues that are geared to offer a package of comprehensive primary health-care services to the citizens.
The spokesman said the council drew up a strategic plan to offer primary health-care services to cover even remote villages in the Kingdom. He explained that the new centers would be built in three phases during the five-year period. During the first phase, he said, 150 such centers will be constructed while the other facilities will be spread out during the next two phases ending in 2014.
In the Kingdom's latest five-year development plan (2009-2014), social development and health care is poised to allegedly command a 19 percent share of total budgeted expenditure, equivalent to SR273.9 billion. Financial allocation for the health care segment alone commands 89 percent of this total, corresponding to SR242.7 billion.