One center serving 223,000 people

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 24: According to health sources, the Ministry of Health, as part of its efforts to open many additional specialized centers and clinics in residential areas, is intensifying efforts to demolish, establish, complete, and maintain the South Hawally Medical Center, especially with the ongoing coordination with the regulatory authorities to obtain the necessary approvals, reports Al-Qabas daily. The sources explained that Hawally area has only one health center that serves about 223,000 people, including about 2,000 Kuwaiti citizens, as per statistics issued by the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI).

Congestion has become the most prominent feature of this center, along with the suffering that the elderly and those with chronic diseases face. Without mentioning the reasons, the supervisory authorities postponed the approval of the ministry’s request to award a tender for the project to demolish, construct, complete and maintain the South Hawally Center, the cost of which amounts to KD 3.8 million, to one of the parties. Hawally area had 3 medical centers - West Hawally, South Hawally, and one near Hawally Park, which had been used by a department affiliated with the Ministry of Health since 2014, and with the aim of staying in it for a period of only up to six months until the completion of construction. The building for that department is in Sabah Medical Center.

This period has now exceeded eight years, despite the readiness of the department building in Sabah area. The presence of only one health center in Hawally area would put additional pressure on Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital, specifically its emergency unit. There are repeated scenes of long queues being witnessed at West Hawally Clinic, such that patients eventually resort to specialized clinics in private medical centers and hospitals, which puts another pressure on families’ budgets, as they need more than one visit during the week sometimes, in addition to dispensing medications from the pharmacies of those facilities.

It is worth mentioning that the number of primary healthcare centers in the country is 112, which are distributed across all governorates. Most of them are in Ahmadi Governorate with 31 centers, followed by the Capital Governorate with 26 centers, then Farwaniya Governorate with 22 centers, Hawally Governorate with 19 centers, and Jahra Governorate with 14 centers.