The Ministry of Health has shut down two private medical facilities in the Qassim region for violation of rules and norms as stipulated by the authorities.

The ministry, which has been consistently conducting inspection of medical facilities across the Kingdom to ensure compliance, found an expatriate in one of the medical facilities without professional license from the ministry. In another case, it found that the medical facility lacked appropriate mechanism to prevent infection control system in the lab.

Both these private medical clinics where randomly inspected by Health Ministry officials.

Salah Mohammed Al-Kharaz, director general of the Ministry of Health in Qassim, said: “We have shut down a private medical facility in Buraidah for a period of 30 days besides slapping a penalty of SR20,000 for not having in place measures to prevent and curb spread of infection.”

He said that in the other case, an expatriate worker was found working in a specialized profession without obtaining the license from the ministry. The ministry slapped a penalty of SR30,000 on the facility for the violation.

The ministry has been imposing penalties against private medical facilities across the Kingdom for violating rules in general and hiring employees without professional license from the Saudi Council of Health Professionals.