A two-day Home Health Care Scientific Forum organized by the Jeddah Health Affairs department’s Home Care Division began yesterday at King Fahd Hospital’s Research and Studies Center.
The forum that concludes today was opened by Dr. Sami Badawoud, director, Jeddah Health Affairs department.
During the forum, Assistant Director for Curative Medicine Turki bin Saleh Al-Sharif announced, the department in 2012 conducted 1,204 visits to the homes of 2,153 patients. The department made more than 7,000 home visits to more than 3,000 patients since the inception of its Home Care Program.
Al-Sharif underlined home visits’ role in mitigating the load on hospitals and relieving elderly and chronic-illnesses patients from periodic visits to hospitals and health care centers.
Dr. Badawoud said the department had provided the qualified manpower, equipment and vehicles required for the success of the program.
Supervisor-general of the program Dr. Nasser Al-Huzaim, said the Ministry of Health plans to improve the program and have its services reach all regions in the country. Yesterday, the forum featured four home-care lectures on contagion prevention, peritoneal dialysis, physical therapy and wound care. Five sessions were scheduled for today that will cover communication, feeding elderly patients, tube feeding and other topics, said Dr. Merfat bin Siddiq, director of Home Care Division at Jeddah Health Affairs Department.
She said two workshops on communication skills and respiratory devices are also scheduled. Those who delivered lectures on the occasion included Dr. Areej Sadeq, Dr. Nabila Aqeel, Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Hashil and Dr. Samia Faraj.