Health Minister Hala Zayed announced on Wednesday that 18.2 million women were examined as part of a presidential initiative.
The initiative, launched in July 2019, is intended to ensure adequate healthcare for women free-of-charge: there are no waiting lists, the minister added.
The minister’s statements came during a meeting to review recent developments related to the initiative. According to the health ministry spokesperson, the results of the initiative’s work over the past two years were discussed.
Zayed commended the speed and facilitation of access to women’s health services. With regard to infrastructure development, the minister mentioned 28 pathological laboratories, 78 mammograms, 40 pathological analysers and 79 ultrasound machines.
The Minister stressed the importance of constant communication with women to benefit from the services provided by the initiative, noting in this respect that about 1.5 million text messages were sent to urging them to keep monitoring their health condition, while 34,683 calls on the hotline were dealt with.
The initiative includes testing and providing awareness of free health care for women starting from the age of 18. It also includes detection of non-communicable diseases (diabetes, blood pressure, weight and height measurement, body mass index determination, and the level of obesity or overweight), and awareness of risk factors. Awareness of reproductive health, family planning and healthy living, and breast self-examination are highlighted in the initiative.
