More doctors, nurses on wards, despite savings drive

Energy Saturday 17/August/2019 23:05 PM
By: Times News Service

Muscat: More doctors, nurses and specialised healthcare professionals are now available to take care of people in Oman, despite the Ministry of Health cutting its expenditure, government data has shown. According to the annual yearbook released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the ministry’s expenditure in 2018 totalled OMR 678 million in spending and OMR 29.3 million in investments, compared to OMR 764 million in spending and OMR 24.4 million in investments the previous year.
In 2018 however there was an increase in the number of medical personnel on hand to provide healthcare to those who needed it. There were 21 doctors, 3.1 dentists, 5.9 pharmacists, 44 nurses and 14.8 hospital beds available for every 10,000 people in the country. In 2017, the corresponding figures were 20 doctors, three dentists, 5.9 pharmacists, 43.7 nurses and 14.7 hospital beds for every 10,000 people. Dr Akjemal Magtymova, the World Health Organisation’s representative to Oman, said having more doctors directly contributed to the quality of healthcare, adding that qualified medical teams working together also greatly improved the standard of healthcare provided.
“To maintain a qualified and competent health workforce, that is, the calibre of health cadres and skill mix, planning its adequate supply and production is the key,” she told Times of Oman.
“This includes ensuring medical education, whether it’s domestic or abroad. There is much evidence about the density of key persons such as doctors, nurses and midwives being strongly correlated to health outcomes,” she added. Magtymova added: “Oman requires a strong primary health care approach which relies on teamwork. Therefore, efforts should be balanced between all cadres, particularly doctors, nurses and midwives. Quality of care and patient safety is one of the flagship programmes and a prime priority of the government of the Sultanate of Oman. The World Health Organisation, together with the Ministry of Health have a long-standing cooperation.”
She said that the WHO had helped set up a collaboration centre with the government to provide research on the best patient care practices, as well as train locals who wished to enter the country’s healthcare sector.
“Last September, the establishment of the first WHO Collaborating Centre in the Sultanate of Oman was designated specifically for this – quality and patient safety – which is focused on research and training for the workforce, not only in Oman, but also to support building quality care systems in the countries of the region,” explained Magtymova. “For example, I can cite a recent collaboration of Oman with Pakistan in this regard.”
She explained: “Oman is a country that respects diversity and to meet the required density and population needs in health care, some proportion of qualified medical workforce are expatriates. More research is needed to understand patient experiences and perception of quality from the users’ perspective.”
Adding to this, Lana Al Wreikat, the UNICEF representative to Oman, said that children and women had always been considered a priority in the country’s healthcare system, because they were seen as its future.
“With women and children seen as the pillars of Omani society, the primary health care (PHC) package was included in Oman’s Health Vision 2050,” said the UNICEF representative. “This package provides for many necessities that women and children need, including the promotion of healthy and balanced nutrition, maternal health care, child health care, immunisation, school health and mental, eye and oral health among many other facets.
“Oman’s previous decades of investment in its institutional capacities for effective stewardship and governance of the health workforce agenda led to a number of improvements in health services and consequently, impressive gains in child health and survival with a drop in infectious childhood diseases. The infant mortality rate and the under-five mortality rate for Oman are respectively 11 and nine per 1,000 live births, a fraction of the MENA regional averages, which are 24 and 20 per 1,000 live births respectively. In maternal health, Oman has achieved universal coverage of antenatal care and institutional delivery services and near universal coverage of post-natal care services.”
In this context, Dr Ahmed Said Al Busaidi, a consultant family physician in Oman, spoke about how more health workers helped improve medical care because stress in clinics could harm both patients and the doctor.
“Every doctor should give his or her patient the right amount of time, taking a look at his medical record and scheduling the needed tests,” he added. “Doing all of this can be hard if the doctor has a long list of patients, because waiting times are tiring for our patients and whoever accompanies them. By the time the patient gets to the doctor, his mental condition can be bad because of waiting, which in turn affects vital signs such as blood pressure and heartbeat, and being in a rush can also harm the doctor’s mental condition.
“Too many people waiting at the door or trying to come in and ask questions will affect that doctor’s concentration and might lead to him making mistakes,” said Al Busaidi. “The best way to fix this issue is to increase the number of health staff for every specific group of people, as well as applying a triage system, whereby patients are initially looked over before being taken to the doctor to determine who needs the most urgent care, and applying appointment systems for all clinics with the exception of emergency cases.”