RIYADH: The Ministry of Health (MoH) saved the lives of 115 individuals last week under its “Referral Program” (Ihalati), according to Sulaiman Ahmed Al-Shirai, the program supervisor.

“They were among the 5,194 patients with emergency cases which had to be referred to specialized hospitals.”

Al-Shirai said that the “Referral Program” is an electronic one and developed by the MoH with the advantage of exchanging medical advice between doctors of different medical facilities without having to move the patient.

The MoH, he said, had been monitoring the cases of 3,257 individuals who need to be transferred to specialized hospitals.

He said that about 62.7 percent of the total number had been transferred to specialized hospitals through the automated system and without any documentation or the intervention of anyone.

He noted that the number of life-saving cases in 2014 reached 115, or 2.21 percent of the total number of patients.

He said the number of emergency cases last year reached 23.18 percent of the total number of patients while the number of in-patients reached 1,154 or 22.22 percent. The number of patients referred to out-patient clinics reached 2,721, or 52.39 percent of transferred cases.

Under the program, the MoH provides all the needed logistics and coordination requirements for the referral of a patient to another medical facility, according to Al-Shirai.

A beneficiary under the program expressed his happiness since he had been cured and had checked out of the hospital.

He said he was attended to by the medical staff of the specialized hospital he was referred to with patience and dedication to their work.

“The doctors were also very professional regarding my medical condition. They showed patience, concern and solicitousness by saying they hoped I’d get out of the hospital soon,” he said.