H E Dr Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Obaid al Sa’eedi, Minister of Health, on Wednesday presided over a virtual meeting that joined the Ministry of Health’s undersecretaries, directors general of health services, as well as the directors of the sultanate’s hospitals and a number of ministry officials.

The minister welcomed the attendees and pointed out that the meeting fell within the periodical and consultative meetings aiming at exploring the perspectives of health leaderships in the sultanate’s governorates on the health system.

The meeting aimed at highlighting topics related to progress of health services and performance indicators, as well as reviewing challenges faced by the governorates to support various health services, and resolving difficulties encountered by health institutions. The meeting reviewed primary health programmes in the governorates and the extent to which they were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It discussed completion of the work of all health programmes, such as maternal and child health, birth spacing, follow-up of cases in diabetes, asthma and elderly health clinics, in addition to conducting examinations for breast cancer early detection and epidemiological investigation of communicable and non-communicable diseases. 

During the meeting, director generals of health services in the governorates were directed to conduct a comprehensive review to develop and reactivate primary healthcare programmes in line with the procedures of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emphasis was made to guide primary healthcare workers on reviewing health data and reports that reflect the performance of the health system, and direct specialists to benefit from various means of communication in order to produce a variety of health awareness messages thus reaching the largest section of society.

The meeting affirmed that in light of the COVID-19 pandemic circumstances, no interruption in dispensing medicines in primary healthcare institutions has been experienced, and that about 90 per cent of chronic diseases patients have received their monthly medications smoothly.

The minister and undersecretaries addressed the attendees’ various relevant administrative and technical health topics, and listened to their suggestions and inquires on the workflow of the sultanate’s health services.