The World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted the excellent, wide-ranging medical services extended by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to pilgrims throughout this year’s Hajj season.
“Thanks to the great efforts exerted by Saudi officials, the Kingdom was free from
epidemic diseases during this year’s Hajj season,” said WHO East Mediterranean Regional Bureau Chief, Dr Hussein bin Abdel-Raziq Al-Jazaeri.
Al-Jazaeri highlighted Saudi Arabia’s excellent medical services, provided free of charge, which improve every year in spite of rising numbers of pilgrims, responding to useful recommendations by health studies conducted on a constant basis.
In a cable to Health Minister Dr Hamad Bin Abdullah Al-Mane, on the occasion of the end of this year’s Hajj season, Al-Jazaeri said that the Kingdom has constructed a large number of hospitals and health care centres in the holy places, and provided them with the most sophisticated medical equipment and qualified cadres. WHO appreciates the efforts exerted by the Saudi Health Ministry to provide over two million pilgrims who come from more than 140 countries, speaking different languages and possessing various habits, with excellent medical services,” said Al-Jazaeri.
In its annual report on the Hajj season, the Ministry of Health said that it allocated 20 hospitals, with a capacity of 4,285 beds, with a potential additional 1,045 beds, and 85 health centres, in Makkah, Madinah and the holy places, to cater for pilgrims’ needs during this year’s Hajj. Besides the hospitals and health centres, medical teams were moving around the holy places in Mina, Arafat and Muzdalifa to extend the required medical services to patients. The report said that the Health Ministry recruited 122 Muslim specialists in the field of primary health care, emergencies and anaesthetization from the U.S., Europe and Malaysia for deployment at this year’s Hajj.
Source: SPA
