Rabeah, Minister of Health, signed on Monday a contract for the construction of a new hospital in the Al-Shisha District of Makkah. The King Faisal Hospital, to be constructed within three years, will be a 300-bed multi-story tower, with the cost of construction projected to be SR158 million. It is the third such construction project in Makkah announced in recent months. Minister Al-Rabeah signed the contract in the capital where he was attending a conference on nose surgery organized by Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Hospital and the Saudi Ear, Nose and Throat Society. Al-Rabeah met the same day with the Filipino Minister of Labor and Employment and agreed to a training program for staff from the Philippines to be qualified according to Saudi Ministry of Health standards. The program will see medical staff take courses in the Philippines of between three and six months in order to ensure competency before they arrive in the Kingdom to take up their posts. There are currently approximately 10,000 Filipinos working in Ministry of Health-run medical practices in the Kingdom.
