Muscat: The State Audit Institution (SAI) issued the Annual Report 2022 in which it highlighted the results of the financial and administrative audit of some government units, authorities, investment, and companies subject to its audit after fulfillment of the followed procedures with those entities.
The Community Brief of the annual report also highlighted some discrepancies in the practices of health professionals in both private and public sectors.
Twenty-eight doctors met patients and performed some surgeries in private health establishments during the official working hours in government hospitals, and during days on which they are not authorized to practice in private health establishments, in violation of the controls stipulated in the regulations in this regard.
The Ministry took a number of regulatory actions in accordance with the specificity of the health sector, including, issuing circulars to all private health establishments to comply with the systems, not permitting doctors to practice the profession in private health establishments during their official working hours, forming a working team to study and evaluate some specializations in private health establishments to ensure their compliance with the Ministry’s specifications and requirements
A number of 17,521 referrals were issued by health establishments under the Ministry of Health to outpatient clinics at Khoula Hospital and 12,018 surgeries were not scheduled during the period from 2017 to 2021.
Waiting periods have been scheduled and names of surgical patients have been entered into a system whereby appointments are prioritized based on each case
Long waiting periods from the date of appointment arrangement to the actual date for meeting doctors in outpatient clinics and performing surgeries in Royal, Khoula, and Al-Nahdha hospitals.
The Ministry is tackling the challenges pertaining to long waiting periods for appointments as a strategic priority.
A team has been formed to work on developing mechanisms to reduce appointment waiting periods in specialized clinics and diagnostic radiology, and develop a methodology to ensure the continued provision of such services in a timely manner - Another team has been formed to work on increasing the capacity of general and specialized surgeries
Long waiting times for appointments scheduled to perform some types of radiology in both Royal and Khoula Hospitals, in addition to variations in some kinds of radiology and other diagnostic methods such as endoscopy and electrography performed per day.
The Ministry took several actions, some of which are: - Activation of social media platforms - Introduction of a triage system in Al-Shifa Healthcare Information Management System to determine urgent and other cases - Conclusion of a financing agreement between the Royal Hospital and a private hospital to cover MRI scanning
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