More Health-Care Facilities for the Elderly Planned

By Walaa Hawari, Arab News

June 8, 2010 

Saudi Arabia

With a burgeoning elderly population, the Kingdom has launched a five-year strategy that will lead to elderly people being offered improved health-care services.

Recent years have seen a growth in the average life expectancy of people in the Kingdom with 5 percent of the population (1.2 million individuals) classed as being elderly.

According to Dr. Esam Al-Ghamdi, director general of Primary Health Care Centers, improvements in the Kingdom’s health care have led to an average life expectancy of 75 for women and 73 for men.

He added that the Kingdom has recently launched a five-year strategy to provide better health-care services to the elderly.

“The strategy began by refurbishing those health-care providers that come under the Ministry of Health and also primary health-care centers,” said Al-Ghamdi, adding that the ministry has established a department to provide health care to elderly people at their homes.

He said those who take advantage of this include those who have been discharged from hospitals and others who may not be severely ill.

Al-Ghamdi said 70 percent of old people go to primary health-care centers and that it is the centers’ duty to reach out to elderly people, provide them with medical checkups to detect other health problems, and refer them to hospitals for further treatment.

Al-Ghamdi said the strategy is built on three points — promoting good health among the elderly, encouraging them to remain active while they age and educating them to be proactive in caring for themselves. He added that a past survey of 3,000 elderly Saudis indicated that there are problems in the type of care given to the elderly.

“We are therefore targeting health-care providers at primary health-care centers. There are over 2,000 such centers in Riyadh alone. We want them to play a major role in this,” said Al-Ghamdi, adding that they want elderly people to remain active when they turn 70 and 80 and even beyond when they are in their 90s.

He added that there are examples of elderly people living healthy in the West and that elderly people are able to live well provided they receive proper care from the beginning to prevent them from getting ill with conditions that hamper mobility.

“Some old people are more prone to falling ... This is where the primary care centers can educate them on the best ways to remain healthy and avoid hurting themselves,” said Al-Ghamdi, adding that early scanning can detect whether the person has problems with his or her seeing and hearing, and in moving.

The next stage, said Al-Ghamdi, is building a database of old people, contacting them and meeting them at their homes.

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