MORE than 800 healthcare facilities were granted licence to operate in Bahrain last year.
The National Health Regulatory Authority (NHRA) also accredited 49 healthcare facilities through hybrid procedures.
This was revealed as the authority’s annual report was launched by its chief executive Dr Mariam Al Jalahma yesterday.
“As part of our regulatory role, the NHRA last year licensed 831 healthcare facilities across the country,” she said.
“This comprises 21 hospitals, 301 centres and 96 clinics and others. The department also processed 118 applications for opening new facilities in various specialties. We issued 80 new licences and renewed permits of 689 existing healthcare centres.”
Of the 831, majority were optic facilities (153) followed by multispecialty medical centres (129). The remaining included 71 multispecialty dental centres, 70 educational health units, 63 full time medical clinics, 46 specialised medical centres, 38 physiotherapy centres, 29 general dental centres, 26 rehabilitation centres, 25 company health units, 20 alternative medical centres, 19 dental labs, 15 general hospitals, 13 full time dental clinics, 12 round-the-clock medical centres, 12 general medical laboratories, 11 nutrition centres, 10 part-time medical centres, eight residential nursing units, seven general medical centres, seven company clinics, six telemedicine centres, five audiology units, five blood collection units, four company centres, four psychological counselling centres, three allied units, three specialised hospitals, three one-day surgery hospitals, three preliminary medical labs, three radiology facilities, two round-the-clock dental centres, two educational clinics, a mobile health centre, a specialised lab as well as a part-time and a specialised dental clinic.
“We are proud to say that we are among the very few certifying authorities in the world to successfully automate operations and adopt the hybrid format of accreditation,” added Dr Al Jalahma.
“The NHRA conducted 30 hybrid surveys while accrediting healthcare facilities last year.
“We were able to accredit 21 hospitals and 28 medical centres, as well as renew the accreditation of 18 healthcare facilities.
“As the year ended, 100pc of all eligible hospitals were accredited. A total of 7,100 hospital standards and 5,230 medical centre standards were assessed, with about 4,000 recommendations made in both categories.
“All facilities have implemented and completed more than 80pc of the survey team’s recommendations.”
NHRA also licensed 78 new pharmacies last year, of which eight were opened in a healthcare facility and 70 were public pharmacies.
“We saw a 16pc increase in the number of licensed pharmacies compared with 2020,” said the report.
“The total number of pharmacies licensed in Bahrain are 396 – of which 317 are operating as public drug stores and 79 are in a healthcare facility.
“Six new pharmaceutical warehouses were registered, taking the total number of such facilities in the country to 22.”
Dr Al Jalahma also highlighted that the authority was planning to obtain the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) recognition, as well as the ISO 9001 certification.
Moreover, in line with the government’s 2030 strategic directions for digital transformation, NHRA implemented Munshaat, a digital service which allows rapid application and regulation of healthcare facilities.
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