PM inaugurates Tafileh hospital, checks on other projects

AMMAN — Prime Minister Hani Mulki on Monday inaugurated the new Tafileh Public Hospital and checked on the progress of Tafileh Industrial Estate project's implementation, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The 150-bed hospital, worth JD34 million, will contribute to improving the quality of medical services provided in the governorate, and reduce the pressure on the Prince Zeid Military Hospital that currently serves all civilian and military patients in the governorate. 

At a meeting held last week with Tafileh community leaders, His Majesty King Abdullah directed the government to start the Tafileh hospital project and to accelerate progress in the industrial estate.

Various ministers and senior officials attended the ceremony to lay the cornerstone, during which Mulki voiced the government's plans to achieve more development for the governorate, 170km south of Amman.

Mulki said that the Tafileh Technical University would play an important role in training hospital workers, noting that there will be no guest workers involved in the project, referring to the recent Cabinet decision to support vocational training in universities. 

The premier said there would be maintenance operations for the hospital, which will be completed in three years, adding that, starting September, work will begin in order to attract Tafileh's citizens to train for managing and sustaining the hospital. 

The government will follow up directly on the hospital’s implementation until August 15, when the decentralisation elections will take place, resulting in the election of a governorate council that will be in charge of developmental projects in each of the country’s 12 governorates. After that date, the premier said, citizens will follow up on the advancement of the project, and will hold the government accountable if any negligence occurs during the execution, Mulki explained.

Health Minister Mahmoud Sheyyab said that, with the new hospital, his ministry would have in place 5,347 beds, spread across 33 public hospitals, accounting for 41 per cent of the total hospital beds in the Kingdom. He noted Jordan will then have an average of one bed per 10,000 people.

Sheyyab also highlighted there were 700 health centres at a rate of one health centre for every 13,500 resident. 

Public Works Minister Sami Halaseh noted that the project has both an underground floor and six other floors, extending over an area of 30,000 square metres.

Halaseh said the total costs of schools, health centres and industrial estate projects under implementation in Tafileh was worth JD75 million. 

While in the governorate, the prime minister visited the Jurf Al Darawish bedouin community, whose estimated population is 3,500, according to Rami Hajaya, a resident.

Hajaya said that it was the first time in decades that a premier visits the village, where Mulki pledged to revive a small-scale wind farm, transform the health centre into a comprehensive healthcare facility and establish a club for the area’s youth, Hajaya told The Jordan Times over the phone.