MAKKAH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will sponsor on Sunday the inauguration ceremony of King Abdullah Medical City in Makkah and the opening of Mina Al-Wadi Hospital in Mina. This hospital will provide medical service to the residents of the holy city and to pilgrims and visitors year-round.
“This royal sponsorship magnifies the keenness of the Saudi leadership to provide consummate health care to the citizens and to the guests of God and is also a reflection of the great attention the government gives to the health services,” Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah said in a press statement.
He expressed thanks and gratitude to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques for sponsoring the occasion and for honoring the ministry and its staff.
The minister said the giant King Abdullah Medical City is a specialized referral facility and the third medical city in the Kingdom after King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh and King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Dammam.
He explained that the city was built over an 800,000-square meter area with the national Project for Integrated Health Care, through which the ministry was endeavoring to provide high-quality health services. He said the city had 1,500 beds, including 500 beds in the specialist referral hospital.
Rabeeah said the specialist referral hospital consisted of five stories with 10 operating theaters and a modern radiology department. He also said the maternity and children’s section had 500 beds.
Sick pilgrims
The Ministry of Health transferred 346 pilgrims who were hospitalized in Makkah to similar facilities in Arafat Wednesday to give them the opportunity of performing the key Haj ritual of standing at Arafat on Thursday.
Speaking from Mina to Arab News, Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Al-Mirghalani said: “We are happy that we were able to help these pilgrims who came all the way from their own countries to perform their pilgrimage.”
He added that these pilgrims are patients who have been admitted to hospitals in Makkah for minor ailments. He said the patients were moved from three hospitals in Makkah in a convoy of three medical vans. During the transfer, they were supported with a team of doctors and required equipment to facilitate a safe journey to the destination. Under the transfer program, 24 pilgrims from Madinah hospitals were also brought to a hospital located at Arafat.
“The pilgrims were so happy that they were getting an opportunity to be at Arafat on the auspicious day,” Al-Mirghalani said.
67 swine flu cases
Ziad Al-Memish, deputy minister of health for preventive medicine, said so far 67 cases of swine flu have been confirmed among the pilgrims. “They are all warded in the four hospitals located within the holy sites,” he said, adding that the number is minimal considering the fact that 2.5 million pilgrims converged on the holy city from all over the world.
— With input from Md Rasooldeen
