Programme to revive primary health care planned

Muscat: A joint meeting between the Ministry of Health (MoH), represented by the Directorate General of Primary Health Care (DGPHC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Office in the Sultanate was convened today at the Millennium Hotel Muscat to develop a plan to revive the basic programme of primary healthcare along with launching "primary healthcare initiative from the vision to implementation". 

The meeting was attended by Dr Jean Jabbour, WHO Representative to the Sultanate and Dr Said bin Harib Al-Lamki, DGPHC Director-General, and a number of MoH and WHO officials.

Dr Jean Jabbour inaugurated the meeting with a speech, in which he said that primary health care (PHC) is one of the health system pillars and the keystone for universal health coverage through the strategic partnership and constant cooperation between the MOH and WHO and other partners.

The WHO Representative touched upon the current conditions of COVID-19 that significantly affected the lives of people and caused an interruption in some of the basic services related to immunisation, infectious diseases, maternal health care and others, which resulted in exposing the health of millions of people at risk.

Dr Jabbour highlighted the global and regional tributes acquired by the Sultanate such as the WHO classification in the "World Health Report 2000". Oman is ranked as the first country among the member states in terms of competency in improving health and the eighth country in terms of the health system's overall efficiency.

Furthermore, Dr Said Al-Lamki, DGPHC Director-General reviewed the most important challenges and PHC programmes that have been implemented amid the pandemic to maintain the continuity of services.

The meeting addressed the assessment of the primary healthcare programs amid the COVID-19 pandemic and their effects on the health indicators along with the initiatives taken by the countries, which maintained the PHC programmes, as well as the global trend of raising the PHC system and expanding access to the essential medicines.