WHO seeks more partnerships with MoH

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has highlighted the importance of strengthening joint national cooperation with the Ministry of Health (MoH) in enhancing health and wellbeing in the Sultanate of Oman.

In the third quarter of the year 2023 from the WHO Oman office, Dr Jean Jabbour, WHO Representative to Oman, spoke about the importance of strengthening joint national cooperation in enhancing health and wellbeing and the WHO would like to enhance better cooperation in different areas with MoH.

This was quoted during his visit to the Oman Medical Speciality Board (OMSB), where he was welcomed by Dr Hood bin Abdullah al Abri, Acting Director of the Board.

During the meeting, several matters related to public health were discussed. The joint discussions included several cross cutting areas of collaboration and following up on the latest developments in the cooperative programmes between OMSB and WHO Oman.

This is in addition to various collaborations between the two in various areas of public health, controlling mortality rates and better healthy children.

Among the various initiatives is the ‘Health for Peace Initiative Forward’ where Dr Jabbour, held a long discussion with Khaled Mohamed Radi, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the Sultanate of Oman where they spoke about supporting the Initiative and seeking ways on how to strengthen the collaboration in areas of common interest.

Also, several public health and wellbeing matters were discussed, including multiple collaborations which are now being planned forward to include regional trainings.

Further, the WHO team headed by Dr Jean Jabbour conducted a field visit to Shida village of Al Batinah North Governorate, where a meeting was held with Shaikh Dr Sultan bin Abdallah al Battashi, Wali of Saham along with several high officials, and representatives of the Ministry of Health.

The village’s Development Committee presented an overview of the ongoing health promotion initiatives and programmes undertaken to name Shida as a WHO healthy village. The WHO Oman team was briefed on all the community efforts in advocating for health and the strength in collecting the health data to assist in providing the required support. The visit concluded with a detailed presentation highlighting the village’s initiatives to promote Health in alignment with Health For all By All EMR vision for 2023.

The newsletter further elucidates that WHO has conducted various national and international interventions to promote health and wellbeing for children in Oman and a visit to Dr Mona bint Fahad al Said, Chairperson for the ‘Children First’ Association and Assistant VC for International Cooperation at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) was paid in her office at SQU.

The meeting discussed several areas of collaboration including national and international activities between the ‘Children First’ Association at the SQU and the WHO and sought ways to strengthen national collaborative efforts, resource mobilisation, and partnerships, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the WHO and the ‘Children First’ Association has been drafted towards a national joint commitment to promoting health and well-being.

The WHO further said that the MoU will outline cross-cutting areas of collaboration between the two entities and the joining forces between the Association and WHO Oman will ensure a brighter and healthier future for the young generation.