Maintenance in hospitals of Saudi Arabia

Abstract EN

This paper is an attempt to audit the existing maintenance situation in government and private hospitals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The results, based on a sample of hospitals from Jeddah and Taif cities, give some insights into the overall working of hospitals and the comparative working between government and private hospitals.

On the basis of all hospitals combined it is found that generally maintenance staff have formal vocational qualifications and are provided training facilities.

The system of working includes both preventive and breakdown maintenance and is fairly well developed.

Maintenance facilities are of standard nature and various maintenance reports are prepared.

Most of the hospitals have maintenance planning and control offices.

The more serious problems faced are nonavailability of spares, shortage of technical manpower and lack of funds.

On a comparative basis, government hospitals employ more maintenance staff, have better training facilities, do more preventive maintenance, have a more organized system of working and prepare more maintenance reports.