The Ministry of Health through Khoula and Al Nahda Hospitals will now introduce evening clinics in certain areas and have services on the weekends to overcome the delays for surgeries as part of the initiatives introduced to reduce the waiting period for surgeries.
The initiatives were launched on Sunday morning at the Khoula Hospital by Dr Hilal bin Ali al Sabti and Dr Rashid bin Mohammed al Alawi, Director General at the Khoula Hospital introduced the eight initiatives with other team members.
Six of the initiatives are mainly surgical, explained Dr Hamdoon al Naamani, Assistant Director, Al Nahda Hospital. According to him, some of them are 1000 knee replacements for elderly patients who are suffering from knee issues, and 1,500 cataract surgeries will be performed with the new initiatives.
He said, "We are planning to establish evening clinics to handle Maxillofacial surgeries because they have a long waiting line in the mornings. This could potentially reduce 500 patients from the waiting line over three months."
He pointed out that in addition, there are at least 100 handicapped patients who require dental extraction urgently.
"Additionally, the MRI initiative will be done from Khoula and is aimed to reduce 12,000 MRIs over one year. So from now on when patients come they would not have to wait six to one year, instead, it would just take two to three weeks to get their MRI appointment."
The challenging medical cases from regional hospitals will come to Khoula and Al Nahda Hospitals.
Cataract is the main reason for blindness in Oman and the world. Cataract is a reversible disease because after the surgery patients gain back full vision.
"The number one operation in all the eye departments around the world is Cataract surgery. Today we are aiming to increase the number of cataract surgeries performed at Al Nahda Hospital from 1,000 to 1,500 per year. So this will decrease the waiting time significantly," said Dr Haitham al Mahrouqi, Senior Specialist in Cornea, Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
At the moment the waiting list is for a year and at times more than a year.
According to Dr Jinan al Abduwani, ENT consultant, this list of new initiatives is indeed good news, "What we approximate is that about 80 percent of our current waiting list will be demolished with this initiative. And this will help a lot of children specifically as most of our cases of adenoid tonsillectomy are for children.
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