Healthcare | Sunday 1 March, 2015 9:21 am |

The Ministry of Health is currently working on establishing a system to grant bonuses and incentives to workers in the health sector whose performances prove to be excellent, while imposing severe punishments on practitioners who commit medical errors, an official source at the ministry disclosed recently.
“The ministry seeks to be one of the best health service providers among advanced countries. We are very sure of accomplishing this goal despite the shortfalls and medical faults,” Abdul Aziz bin Saeed, undersecretary for public health at the ministry, told local media.

The physician also commented on the assessments made by the delegation of the World Health Organization (WHO) in dealing with the coronavirus. “They found out that our efforts resulted in achieving good leaps in the field of prevention and fighting contamination and the spread of the virus inside hospitals, which positively reflected on performance. The number of patients infected inside hospitals is very low now compared to previous numbers,” Saeed stated. However, he admitted that a number of infections occurred at health centers.
He noted that one of the recommendations of the WHO team is to redirect research efforts to study the reasons why viruses are transmitted from camels to humans.

“The reason for the increase in cases of MERS at hospitals is that some practitioners do not adhere to the guidelines to fight contamination,” he explained.
The undersecretary was speaking following a statement by an official at WHO, lauding the procedures followed by the Saudi Health Ministry to prevent contagion.
Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of WHO for health security affairs, pointed out a great improvement in this regard in the Kingdom.
“I have noticed a significant improvement in combating MERS, especially in therapeutic, diagnostic and preventive services. One of the efforts indicating this big improvement is the establishment of a center to monitor and follow up on cases, the Control and Command Center,” Fukuda noted in his statement.