The National Anti-Corruption Commission, Nazaha, has urged Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah to set up a committee to improve and ensure quality service at the ministry’s hospitals.
“The committee’s tasks should be to identify those responsible for poor services in health facilities under the ministry and hold such officials accountable for their failures and punish negligent and slack officials as per relevant regulations,” the Nazahah said in a letter to Al-Rabeeah recently.
The letter also stressed the importance of ensuring quality services to citizens who seek treatment at public hospitals.
The anti-corruption commission pointed out that it was the duty of the ministry to deal with citizens’ complaints on shortcomings or negligence in hospital services.
Nazaha was prompted to write this letter to top-ranking officials at the ministry because of its shocking findings at some hospitals run by the ministry, citing the example of the Tathlith General Hospital in the Beesha governorate in Asir. They declared that the level of health services, administration and other activities was abysmally poor in that hospital. In addition, staff members were seldom punctual, the letter said.
The commission also discovered that the 27-year-old hospital did not have an electronic system to manage its 77,160 files. The hospital did not have clinics for urology, neurology, pediatric surgery or mental diseases, the letter noted.
The commission demanded an explanation as to why the clinics for internal medicine, orthopedics, ophthalmology, gynecology and obstetrics and ENT were not operating beyond the morning shift in spite of a high volume of patients at these clinics.
Nazaha also wondered why large quantities of medicine were left unused and wasted until they expired. It also criticized the disposal of unused, expired medicine without keeping records of the quantities disposed of.
It drew the attention of the minister to the poor condition of the hospital’s laboratory and blood bank, where essential equipment were nonfunctional. Dialysis units were also in an unsatisfactory condition.
The hospital also did not have wheel chairs and beds at the entrance to transport emergency cases, the letter pointed out.
Nazaha criticized the hospital authorities for keeping bodies at the morgue for more than three months at a time, an overall poor hygienic state in inpatient wards and toilets where mosquitoes, flies and other insects were a common sight. There were no carts to supply meals to inpatients. Ceilings and walls at inpatient wards were also in bad shape. In addition, air conditioners were dysfunctional. Roads and pavements inside the hospital compound were also left in a unsatisfactory state, the letter read.
Nazaha cites poor state of MoH hospitals
