RIYADH: The biggest dialysis center in the Middle East, equipped with 140 machines to serve 800 patients daily, will be established in Jeddah at a cost of SR60 million. The center will be named after the late Makkah governor, Prince Abdul Majeed, and will be fully funded by the Prince Fahd bin Salman Charitable Foundation For the Care of Kidney Patients. The society has awarded the contract to Majd Al Ola Constructing and Contracting Establishment.
An agreement was signed yesterday by Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah and Dr. Mohamed Al-Arnoos, chairman of Majd Al Ola Constructing and Contracting Establishment. The signing took place in the presence of Prince Abdul Aziz ibn Salman, assistant minister of petroleum and mineral resources, who is the supervisor general of Prince Fahd bin Salman Charitable Society. Dr. Faisal Shaheen, chairman of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation, was also present.
Prince Abdul Aziz said the construction of the center, which will be one of the biggest facilities in the world, will be completed within 18 months. The three-story center will be built on an area of 10,000 sq. meters at the King Fahd General Hospital in Jeddah. Its staff will include 17 consultants in nephrology, 34 resident-physicians and specialists in addition to 280 nurses. It will have separate rooms for patients receiving dialysis treatment and will have an outpatient department. The center will train patients and their family members how to operate dialysis machines at home. The center will be equipped with a state-of-the-art laboratory, training center, blood bank, counseling center, pharmacy as well as consultation clinics and rooms.
The prince thanked philanthropists who made the project a reality through their donations. The donors included the late Waheeb Binzagr, Khalid Juffali, Nasser Al-Rasheed, Omran Al-Omran, Emad Al-Muhaidib, Abdulrahman Al-Jomaih, Saleh Binladin, and Abdulrahman Al-Rajhi. The prince hoped that more philanthropists would help the society generate additional funds needed to complete the project.
Thanking the prince and the society, Al-Rabeeah said the ministry would recruit local as well as foreign medics and paramedics to staff the center. “We give priority to preventive health as opposed to curative treatment,” he said. He said the ministry would ensure international standards in the maintenance and operation of the new facility.
According to Shaheen, people who are susceptible to renal diseases should have regular medical checkups. Those susceptible include patients suffering from diabetes, hypertension, urinary problems and obesity, he added.
Around 500 million people (10 percent of the world population) suffer from kidney problems and 90 percent of them have permanent kidney-related illnesses. The number also includes 1.5 million patients who are undergoing medical treatment following kidney transplants, he said, adding that the number would increase by 100 percent over the next 10 years. Patients who reach the end-stage of renal diseases are advised to undergo kidney transplant. It is estimated that there are about 11,000 dialysis patients in the Kingdom, with an annual increase of nine percent.
Shaheen said statistics indicate that the Western province has the highest incidence of kidney problems. “There are 3,300 patients who need dialysis but the number of dialysis units are limited,” he said.
