BURAIDAH – Several patients in Qassim are critical of lack of hospital beds, weakness of the medical staff and extremely long appointments. These issues have become part of the daily struggle due to lack of realistic implementation of the Ministry of Health guidelines. Abdullah Al-Saleh considered the inadequate health situation in Qassim a natural result of what he called the absence of strategies and goals. "There are no clear programs from the ministry regarding the number of hospitals to be created and the required disciplines and departments," he said. He added that health media and its branches in the region are concerned with polishing the achievements of the ministry in order to cover up the shortcomings and mistakes, medical disasters and scarcity of the number of beds and overcrowding in emergency. Al-Saleh points out that health services in the Qassim area lack important and rare medical disciplines, and the quality of treatment provided to patients are below average. "There are many cases that get transferred to Riyadh to complete treatment in the capital," he said. Al-Saleh explained a dispute arose over to the closing down of some departments at King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Buraidah. "The reason for closing down the departments was maintenance, which led to the intervention of the emirate of the region that have addressed a lot of issues. We are still waiting for the Ministry of Health to pay serious attention to our future needs," he said. Muhammad Al-Shberma said it was unfair to denounce the Health Ministry's efforts. He said there are developments and expansions, but not equivalent to the increasing population density and the enormous needs for treatment in light of the modest level of health services in the area. "The region suffers from strong pressure due to large number of patients coming from surrounding areas. We are in need for hospitals with a greater capacity," he added. Al-Shberma recommended focus on creating health centers and departments to serve all patients in the provinces and villages of Qassim. He believed that solutions to the development of health services lies in the need to involve the private sector in hospital management and exchange of experiences and take advantage of the possibilities available to each party. "We need to establish special committees to examine the medical staff and develop models to measure the efficiency and productivity of provided medical services," he added.
