Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Saudi Health Council meeting has approved a mechanism for dealing with cases of violence, abuse, and neglect in public and private healthcare facilities and those involving their staff. The mechanism is aimed to protect those affected by violence and abuse in healthcare facilities and proper handling of such cases.

The meeting, chaired by Minister of Health and Chairman of the Council Fahd Al-Jalajel, also approved an update to the medical coding system. Members of the Council representing health sectors and relevant authorities attended the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, Al-Jalajel praised the tremendous response of health sectors to the Crown Prince's Blood Donation Campaign and the high-quality services they provided to all members of society. This is an extension of the humanitarian initiatives of the Kingdom's leadership and its unwavering approach to human healthcare and improving quality of life.

The Council meeting reviewed several reports, including the report about Rasd Platform, the electronic tracking and tracing system for human medicines. The platform, launched by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, monitors the entire supply chain of registered drugs, from manufacturing to consumption, using unique serial numbers encoded in two-dimensional barcodes.

The report dealt with enabling health authorities to fully match their warehouse stocks of medicines with the Rasd System. This will ensure the governance of the pharmaceutical supply chain. The meeting also highlighted the importance of achieving pharmaceutical security by enhancing the availability of medicines, ensuring their safety, and combating fraud.

The Council approved the National Blood Donor Questionnaire and its appendices, designating it as a unified questionnaire for all healthcare facilities to evaluate blood donors. The questionnaire includes numerous questions related to health aspects and risk factors for infectious diseases. This is to ensure the safety of the donor, their health condition, and the blood being transfused, and to achieve the highest standards of quality and safety that blood banks in the Kingdom have to follow to provide safe blood.

The Council also reviewed the report on the cancer incidence rate in the Kingdom for 2023, as well as the report on the health sectors' commitment to entering and updating family data into the electronic system, and confirmation of the complete entry and continuous updating of data in the Capacity Management System Index.