King sets aside land for new health facilities

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has allocated 4.5 million sq. meters of land for expansion of health facilities in Taif and Jeddah, Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah announced here yesterday.
According to royal directives, the land, adjacent to the King Faisal Hospital in Taif, has been allocated to build a medical tower which would house a maternity and children’s hospital. Under the program, 4 million sq. meters shall be demarcated near Taif University for the construction of a general hospital, mental hospital and a rehabilitation hospital.
Under the royal directives, 116,000 sq meters adjacent to the hospital in the north of Jeddah will be acquired for the construction of a maternity hospital and a 400-bed children’s hospital.
A 9,600 sq. meter parking lot at the Eye Hospital in Jeddah will be utilized for building a tower that would contain a 200-bed hospital.
The King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah will be expanded with an acquisition of 3,200 sq.meters and it will be further expanded with a subsequent acquisition of 80,500 sq.meters lying in the north, west and south of the hospital for construction of new health facilities.
Thanking King Abdullah and Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and defense minister, for their initiatives to improve the health care services in the Kingdom, Al-Rabeeah said the king inaugurated 420 health projects and laid foundation stones for 127 other health facilities worth SR 12 billion recently in Jeddah.
“These projects, which are considered a cultural qualitative shift, are in fact the largest event in the history of the Ministry of Health,” Al-Rabeeah said.
The newly opened projects comprised 29 hospitals and health facilities and 391 primary health care centers, the minister said.
The king also laid the foundation stones for two medical cities in the northern and southern regions, projects in three medical cities, a specialist hospital, seven public hospitals, two medical towers, 73 digitized operation theaters and 111 primary health care centers, the minister said.
With these new additions, the number of hospitals commissioned by the ministry over the last three years reached 54 and primary health care units 645.
The ministry is currently constructing 122 hospitals and medical towers, 305 primary health care units and planning to double beds in its hospitals in the next seven years.
Highlighting his ministry’s qualitative performance, Al-Rabeeah said 10 Saudi hospitals won the accreditation certificate by the US Accreditation Authority for Public Health Program and 30 other hospitals of the accreditation certificate of the Saudi National Committee on Quality Assurance.
The king opened the East Arafat hospital with 236 beds and 10 health centers at the cost of SR 153.45 million. The king also opened 28 hospitals and specialist departments at the cost of SR 3.89 billion. They included the King Faisal Hospital in Taif, the Maternity and Children’s hospital in Makkah, the Maternity and Children’s hospital in Dammam (each of them with 500 beds) and the South Riyadh hospital and Al-Quwaeiyah hospital in Riyadh province with 200 beds each.
The Badaei Hospital in Qassim and Jazan Medical Tower have 100 beds each. The ceremony also involved the renovation of the Al-Noor Hospital, Badr Al-Janoub and Yadmah hospitals in Najran and Al-Khobah and Al-Raith hospitals in Jazan and some other hospitals in Asir and Qassim provinces. These hospitals will provide 2,600 additional beds, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The newly inaugurated 381 primary health centers worth SR 1.38 billion cover all provinces in the Kingdom.
The projects for which the king laid foundation stones and which are worth SR 3.79 billion include the Prince Muhammad Medical City (phase one) meant for the northern provinces, the King Faisal Medical City (phase one) for the southern provinces, and the third tower of the King Saud Medical City in Riyadh with 400 beds and the construction of the Neurology Center in King Abdullah Medical city in Makkah. This is in addition to specialization centers in King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh.