MOH adopts 5-year plans for health development

MUSCAT: Healthcare in the Sultanate is receiving significant attention in the basic health services provided by the Ministry of Health, whether to citizens or residents through hospitals and health centres throughout the Sultanate.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has prepared a number of health programmes and services that have contributed to raising the healthcare system through the vision of the health system ‘Health 2050’ which is one of the guidelines for the future vision 2040 regarding the health system in the Sultanate.

“The health sector in the Sultanate has witnessed a radical development in the concept of health services and in the areas of their implementation,” Dr Fatima bint Ibrahim al Nabhaniyah, said.

“This development was in line with the development and improvement steps in all other fields.” She added that the Ministry of Health received the International Diamond Award for Excellence in Quality awarded by the European Foundation for Quality Research at an official ceremony held in Vienna, Austria, with the participation of 54 institutions from 43 countries.

She pointed out that the remarkable development in child health is due to the adoption of Health for All policy by the Ministry of Health, in cooperation with the concerned authorities and international organisations to improve the quality of services provided to these two groups of society, raise the efficiency of health workers and raise awareness in the community about the most important health problems and prevention, and promote healthy habits and practices.

She explained that the Ministry of Health has taken the method of developing five-year plans for health development, which included three stages. The first stage includes the process horizontal expansion in the of infrastructure of health services to reach different segments of the Omani society.

The second stage includes the development of the quality of health services to become more comprehensive and addresses the various aspects of preventive, curative and rehabilitative care, and the design and implementation of specific programmes aimed at important health problems and sensitive categories.

The third stage focuses on supporting health programmes and addresses the concept of primary health care and management of health services in the form of decentralisation and how to deal with the quality of modern diseases resulting from lifestyle change to the modern style and change in the composition of the population.

Dr Fatima also stressed that the Ministry of Health has started preparing and working on the Ninth Five-year Plan 2016-2020 which includes the health of women and children and the reduction of morbidity and mortality rates of mothers and children according to national and international rates through achieving the expected results, improving the quality of preventive and curative services provided within reproductive health programmes, strengthening monitoring and reporting system for maternal and child mortality, strengthening preventive and curative services provided in the child health programme package, and strengthening partnership with other sectors to promote women’s and children’s health and improve reproductive behaviour.

Regarding the improvement in child health indicators, Dr Fatima pointed to the importance of family planning by leaving a period of time between one child and another for at least three years, indicating that the close pregnancy may result in health problems for the mother and her child and social and economic problems.