Jordan- Al Bashir Hospital contractors blamed for quality of service, to be replaced 

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) The Ministry of Health has decided to replace the companies that provide security, hospitality and custodial services at Al Bashir Hospital as the quality of their services is inadequate, Health Minister Abdul Latif Wreikat said on Monday.

Wreikat noted that the ministry would float a tender soon to replace these companies in an effort to improve services at the hospital.

The ministry, he added, will also replace service companies that employ non-Jordanians in seven other health facilities across the Kingdom with Jordanians who will be affiliated with the ministry.

"If the plan of replacing these companies with employment through the ministry succeeds, we will implement it in all other facilities," the minister said during a media tour of Al Bashir Hospital.

Meanwhile, Wreikat said, the ministry will finish the third phase of the hospital's expansion project within two to three months.

This phase includes establishing a new wing with a 465-bed capacity, which will host internal medicine, surgery, X-ray, rehabilitation, ICU and CCU sections.

This phase also includes developing the hospital's emergency department.

"We have completed 95 per cent of the emergency development project," Wreikat said, adding that this section will now have waiting rooms for patients' families.

The ministry has also floated a tender to purchase new medical equipment for Al Bashir Hospital at a cost of JD14 million.

The first two stages of the JD73 million expansion project included expanding the gynaecology and maternity sections to a capacity of 340 beds, in addition to developing and equipping the medical labs, parking areas and warehouses.

The hospital's neonatal intensive care unit was also expanded and is currently equipped with 81 incubators.

"This section receives 20 to 30 new infants every day," said Samir Faouri, director of the paediatric and neonatal section at the hospital, noting that keeping a newborn in an incubator costs JD300 daily.

He added that this section is one of the most crowded at the hospital.

Some mothers, he said, deliver their babies in private hospitals and admit the baby at Al Bashir Hospital if an incubator is needed, taking advantage of the Kingdom's law providing free care at public hospitals to children from birth to age six, including children from the Gaza Strip who were born in Jordan.

Incubators are devices that provide a womb-like environment in which a baby can mature.

"Some babies need to stay for a month or more in the incubator," Faouri said.

Al Bashir is the largest public hospital in Jordan and was established in 1954. Currently, it is equipped with 956 beds.