JEDDAH: The Health Ministry will soon recruit 1,000 Egyptian doctors to implement its family health care program and overcome the shortage of doctors at its hospitals and primary health care centers, said ministry spokesman Dr. Khaled Mirghalani.
He also disclosed plans to establish 195 family health care centers in different regions of the Kingdom during the next four years.
“We’ll also open special clinics for children and make arrangements for vaccination at existing centers,” he said.Mirghalani said Saudi and foreign doctors at government hospitals would be trained to provide family health care, adding the Health Specializations Authority has agreed to introduce a one-year family medicine program for the purpose.
Dr. Abdullah Al-Owaid, deputy executive director for family medicine and primary health care at King Abdul Aziz Medical City, said the family health care system would protect people from contagious diseases.
He said the system would ensure regular meetings with doctors, proper diagnoses and suitable treatments. “People will also be able to interact with doctors through the telephone and Internet,” he added.
Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie has emphasized the importance of a family health care system. “We are now in the process of introducing what is globally known as a culture of family and community health care, replacing the primary health care system,” he said in a previous statement.
Al-Manie said more than 2,000 family and community health care clinics would be established across the country as part of the new strategy to improve health services. “Our aim is to provide high quality services and bring radical changes in the primary health care system,” he said. “Family and community health care centers will become an important part of a strategy aimed at developing health services in the Kingdom in general and basic health care in particular,” Al-Manie said. “A doctor for each family” is the slogan of the new health care system, he said, adding that his ministry had already decided to implement the new program that will provide preventive health care, treatment and rehabilitation.
The distribution of family health care centers would be based on population and geography. “There will be a doctor for every 2,000 to 3,000 people and the doctor will make at least four visits to each resident annually,” he explained.
