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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia adopts ambitious policies in the field of health and social care and provides the highest level of medical services to its people and pilgrims during the pilgrimage (Hajj) season. Some of the kingdom’s hospitals and specialized medical centers achieved tangible successes in the fields of advanced surgeries, such as organ transplants and other accurate operations done by Saudi physicians. |
The state, represented in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, pays great attention to social care programs for the citizens in need, especially those whose social, psychological or physical circumstances prevent them from adapting to society. These programs provide them with sound upbringing, preparation, rehabilitation and help them with overcoming their social conditions. |
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Health Services |
The kingdom’s government works, through the Ministry of Health, on making available the health services in all parts of the kingdom. Some other government departments, such as the Ministry of Defense, The Presidency of the National Guard, the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Education, the General Presidency for Girls’ Education, the General the Presidency for Youth and the General Organization for Social Insurance, make available health services for their employees and their families in the hospitals and medical centers established by these departments. The medical services in the kingdom, besides their quality, are free of charges. Some hospitals, affiliated to the military sectors, gained world recognition due to their excellence in every sense of the word. |
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In addition to its supervision on the health sector, the Ministry of Health follows up conditions of the citizens sent abroad for treatment, whose number has shrank in the last few years as a result of the development of the medical sector inside the kingdom. |
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The Ministry of Health cared for preparing and qualifying medical cadres as it established 44 institutes for males and females and developed these institutes by turning them into colleges. Medical studies started in 13 medical science colleges in a number of cities in the Kingdom. This is in addition to 9 medical colleges affiliated to the Saudi universities. On the other hand, the Saudi Red Crescent Society, which was founded in 1963, provides medical aid services and participates during the pilgrimage season. The society has 11 branches to which 155 centers are affiliated. More than 2791 persons work in the society, ranging from physicians, pharmacists to first aid personnel and it has about 648 ambulances. |
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The following are some indicators which reflect factual data of the health services in the kingdom:-
In the year 1997, the number of hospitals in the kingdom reached 303 hospitals, 180 of which are affiliated to the Ministry of Health, 84 are affiliated to the private sector, that made use of the support of the government that offered loans to the tune of 50% of the cost of construction and equipping. The other hospitals are affiliated to the other government bodies. These hospitals support primary health care centers which number 2348, 1737 of which are affiliated to the Ministry of Health. |
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The number of physicians in all health sectors in the Kingdom reached 31,585 physicians. The number of the nursing body numbers 62,899 nurses and the number of aiding people reached 35,227 assistants. The number of physicians against the population became one physician for every 6.1 persons. - There is a number of specialized hospitals in the kingdom such as king Faisal Specialized hospital in Riyadh, which comprises a medical research center and another center for cancer research, and King Khalid specialized ophthalmology hospital. These hospitals take over the treatment of serious cases referred to them from the public hospitals.
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Among the specialized centers, established in the Kingdom, is the Saudi Center for Organ Transplanting. Since its establishment in 1987 and up to the end of December 1997, it supervised the transplanting of 2299 kidneys, 144 livers, 75 hearts and 7743 comes. Also 132 heart valves were made use of it.
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Currently, work is under way to inaugurate King Fahd medical city in Riyadh whose construction is completed. It contains a public hospital with a capacity of 459 beds, children’s hospital with a capacity of 246 beds, confinement hospital with a capacity of 236 beds, a kidney and medical rehabilitation center and a hospital for mental health outside Riyadh with a capacity of300 beds. –
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The kingdom is singled out with a special sort of health care, which is medical evacuation through a fleet of airplanes equipped with medical accessories for aiding and transporting patients from their locations to hospitals. The medical evacuation fleet, which is supervised by the Armed Forces’ Medical Services, comprises more than 12 planes. Many of patients and injured people make use of this service annually.
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The rate of vaccination in the kingdom is one of the highest in the world as it reached 93.7% for tuberculosis, 94% for viral hepatitis, 93% for measles and 95% for the bacterial treble and kids’ paralysis.
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Services of Social Development and Care |
Programs of social development and care receive great interest from the state. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs plays a salient role in offering services of care, rehabilitation and care for childhood, motherhood, orphans, juveniles, the disabled and others. It makes available means of decent living for citizens who face poor social, health and economic conditions. There are also social developments programs which aim at raising the economic and social level of the citizens through programs that depend on personal efforts. In addition to the services, the state offers to the above-mentioned groups, charity societies in numbering 187, 20 of which are women’s. They manage social institutions, programs childhood care, motherhood and kindergartens. Those societies, to which the state offers financial, technical and administrative support, organize educational, training, rehabilitational and cultural programs for caring for the disabled and the elderly. They also organize other programs relative to constructing and improving residences, such as the charity residence for destitute families. This is in addition to the health services and physical treatment they provide. The total revenues of the charity societies during 1998 reached SR 811,4 million, while their expenditure in the same year reached SR 622,5 million. The amount of aid forwarded by the ministry to charity societies reached in 1999 SR 53, 03 million. The following are some facts and information about the social development and care, supervised by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. |
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The ministry cares for childhood through 5 social houses in major areas of thekingdom by providing the social and psychological atmosphere suitable for rearing children of special conditions, from their birth to the age of six. In these houses, educational and recreational programs are conducted to compensate for the child’s lack of family.
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The ministry cares for the orphans who turn six, both males and females. This is in addition to the children of prisoners, patients and those who cannot work or those who lost the factors of sound social upbringing in their families. This is done through 16 houses, 11 of which are for social education for males. They receive kids from the age six to 12. The ministry also does this through two Institutions for standard social education, that receive children after the age of 18 and 3 social houses for social education for girls who are received at the age of 6. The houses participate in caring for and preparing them until they become house ladies, able to lead a noble family life. Each girl getting married gets a monetary grant of SR 20 thousand.
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The ministry applies the “alternative care program”, in which care for a number of orphans and those with special conditions, is entrusted to families selected according to special social conditions. Those children are subject to the supervision and follow up the ministry departments. The family, which is entrusted with caring for the child, gets a monthly aid. This aid increases in case the child joins a school. However, most of the Saudi families volunteer to embrace those children aspiring to review the rewards from Allah.
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The crippled are rehabilitated through the craft rehabilitation projects and social care programs for the crippled together with their peers. There are institutions for the care of paralyzed children in Riyadh and Taif. There are also 5 houses for craft rehabilitation, two of which are for girls, 3 centers of social rehabilitation for those who are seriously crippled and 9 centers for total rehabilitation. In addition to this, the ministry assists the families of the crippled, who want to care for kids themselves. 45,733 cases of the crippled and paralyzed children benefited from aids amounting to SR 210 million in 1999.
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The ministry supervises the treatment of divergence of the juveniles whose ages range orientation. As for the treatment programs, they are conducted through 7 houses for social observance and 3 institutions for girls’ care. While the ministry takes over the social, psychological and cultural programs, craft training programs and sports activities in these houses and institutions, the Ministry of Education and the General Presidency of Girls’ Education provide the educational programs in their three stages.
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The social programs are carried out through 16 centers for social development which serve the rural areas, 7 centers for social services serving urban areas and 58 social development local committees that take over the job of the social development centers in the areas, to which the services of these centers do not arrive. In the administration of these centers, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs is aided by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water, Principality and Village Affairs.
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The ministry participates in supporting the multi purpose cooperative societies, which number 162 working in the fields of agriculture, consumption and public services. The social insurance represents one of the aspects of care, which the government pays attention to. The ministry secretariat for social insurance affairs, through its main and branch offices, numbering 76, conducts field research and pays to all those deserving social insurance in the form of pensions given periodically or as temporary aid. Some groups of citizens make use of this payment as they need care and aid. They are divided into two groups:
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A. the pensions’ group: this includes orphans, those totally unable to work and the women who have no one to provide for them. |
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B The group of aid that includes those partially unable to work, families of prisoners and those plagued with individual disasters, the families deserted by their providers, the urgent and recurrent aid and the aid for the crippled. |
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These are some of the patterns of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s attention for social care programs stemming from the teachings of Islam. These teachings urge social solidarity. This interest is incorporated in the increasing monetary allocations, which are appropriated for social purposes. These allocations have risen from SR 533 million in 1990 to 724 million in 1996.
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