E-sick leave application slashes visitors to clinics

The Director of the Health Media Center and the official spokesman for the Ministry of Health Dr. Abdullah Al-Sanad says the electronic sick leave application system has contributed to reducing the number of visitors to clinics by 21 percent within 90 days of its launch.

He said this while reviewing the results of a study conducted by the Information Systems Department of the Ministry of Health on the implementation of the electronic sick leave application system, and its impact on the level and quality of service provided through primary health care centers.

After analyzing the results of a sample that included more than 23 million visits to primary health care centers, and 630,000 sick leave requests submitted by those over 18 years of age, it was found that the rate of visits to primary health care centers decreased by 21 percent. This is after comparing the number of visits in the last quarter of 2022, which amounted to 4,025,157 visits, compared to 3,182,195 visits in the last quarter of 2023.

Dr. Al-Sanad indicated that the results of the study also showed a decrease in total sick days by 16 percent. The average sick leave issued per month was 537,782 in the last quarter of 2022, and this has reduced to 450,151 sick days per month in the last quarter of 2023. It also provided more than 56,000 working hours for health and administrative personnel.