Health Ministry publishes 2016 annual report

AMMAN — The Health Ministry on Wednesday published its annual statistical report for 2016, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Prepared by the information and studies directorate at the ministry, the report, which can be viewed at www.moh.gov.jo, shows the “workload shouldered” by the ministry, its efforts to improve health services and its overall achievements, ministry spokesperson Hatem Azrui said.

There are 676 health centres spread around the Kingdom, 102 of which are comprehensive, 380 primary and 194 secondary health centres, the spokesperson said, adding that there are 405 dentistry clinics and 464 motherhood and childhood clinics. 

Doctors at the centres treated 10,807,866 cases of parasitic diseases, tumours, endocrine glands issues, blood diseases, nervous and respiratory system related treatments, in addition to digestive, urinary and reproductive cases. 

Jordan was ranked one of the best countries in the region in the field of protecting children against dangerous diseases. The national vaccination programme, implemented in 1979, has successfully protected children from polio, tetanus and diphtheria, in addition to measles and tuberculosis, Petra reported. 

Azrui said that, in 2016, 30,548,819 vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis, haemophilus influenza and tetanus were administered. 

The statistical report also indicated that around 679,000 patients checked in respiratory diseases centres affiliated with the ministry, adding that 460 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis and non-pulmonary tuberculosis among Jordanians and foreigners were recorded.

The ministry’s spokesperson said its hospitals face “huge pressures”, with a large increase in people checking in at outpatient clinics, whose number reached 2,978,989. 

He added that those hospitals performed 88,305 large, medium and small surgeries, while the number of births reached 72,168 at the same hospitals.