Tuesday / 13 / Ramadan / 1444 AH – 02:21 – Tuesday, April 4, 2023 02:21
An honorable history that is told before tens of auxiliary, parallel and specialized hospitals were planted around it, and it elevated it to the entity of King Saud Medical City.
Perhaps the Asir Central Hospital in the city of Abha has carried the same mission and burden amid the highest population density for four decades, during which it has been providing various health, medical and specialized services, and absorbing the diversity and seriousness of emergency cases, in vital and rugged mountainous and coastal areas that include thousands of villages and towns, and the Ministry of Health was relying on on it entirely, regardless of the challenges and deficiencies it faces.
A hospital that benefited from the excellence of the graduates of the Faculty of Medicine of King Khalid University in Abha, and the diversity and abundance of medical cases, until it became a scientific and practical goal for many specialists, consultants and medical staff, since a year’s experience in it is equivalent to years in other hospitals.
A shadow hospital that suffers from overcrowding, appointment spacing, postponing operations schedules, and a lack of some resources, especially after the medical city project in Abha was disrupted, and those who were sent to work there were distributed to hospitals in other cities.
Four decades of rumors that have been renewed with every new Minister of Health, that the reserve hospital is coming, but they remain lame rumors that do not stand still.
Successive hospital administrations are striving, and green performance indicators do not convey the true picture, especially during summer vacations and during the pandemic, and in the participation of Armed Forces hospitals in dealing with the patients and wounded of the homeland during the Yemen war, which made patient reviews and their distant clinics tired of the eyes, heart, and liver!
Seeking recovery is a human instinct, and the possibilities for treatment in private hospitals are disparate, exhausting the pockets of the majority of average people, and those who do not have health insurance.
For entitlement, the services of Asir Hospital extend to the coastal cities and even Jizan, three hours away in the south, and to Al-Qunfudhah and Al-Baha, a distance of four hours to the north, and to the borders of Wadi Al-Dawasir to the east, five hours away.
It is true that the Ministry of Health allows, through “My Referral” programs, to facilitate the diagnosis and transfer of some patients at risk to hospitals in other cities in the Kingdom, but this remains a burdensome burden on Asir Central Hospital, with the need to receive cases, put them to sleep, take care of them, and conduct examinations, analyzes and tests before the transfer of midwives takes place. transferable.
His Excellency the Minister of Health Fahd bin Abd al-Rahman al-Jalajel, today he has a historic opportunity to leave a great good impact, by deciding on the implementation of the Al-Asiri Reserve Hospital, as quickly as possible, and he is undoubtedly familiar with the old and renewed need, damages, geography, topography and feasibility.
Development plans may be prolonged, and the need is dire, and dangerous disease and surgical cases do not stop, but multiply, and the era of blessed vision and openness to tourism needs something better and much more than what exists.
Finally, health is a dear wish for the people of the Asir region, the cities and villages of Al-Safa, the peaks of high mountains, the plains, valleys and coasts whose inhabitants’ heads yearn for the luster of their crowns.
shaheralnahari@