The Shura Council State of Qatar

The Shura Council held its regular weekly meeting on Monday at Tamim bin Hamad Hall under the chairmanship of HE Speaker of the Shura Council Hassan bin Abdullah Al Ghanim.

At the beginning of the session, the Council welcomed the country's hosting of the 5th UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries, which was inaugurated by HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani yesterday, Sunday.

The Council praised the content of HH the Amir's speech at the conference, and His Highness's affirmation of the pride of the State of Qatar in continuing its active role in multilateral international action in various fields like development, humanitarian, human rights, and mediation to enhance international peace and security, and its provision of many Humanitarian and developmental contributions, especially within the framework of strategic partnerships with the United Nations and other leading international institutions, based on its National Vision 2030.

The Council highlighted what HH the Amir of the country referred to in his speech, that there is an obligatory moral responsibility on the rich and developed countries, to contribute more to helping the least developed countries in order to overcome the global challenges they face, and that it is a responsibility and not a favor.

The Council affirmed that the country's hosting of such international events reflects Qatar's active role in the international arena, and the confidence it enjoys from various organizations and countries, in addition to its world-leading position.

Within this context, HE Speaker of the Council Al Ghanim, referred to the Parliamentary Forum on the Least Developed Countries, which was organized by the Shura Council last Saturday in cooperation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union, indicating that the forum comes in the context of parliaments' support for international efforts to support the least developed countries to get out of this classification.

Afterwards, HE Secretary-General of the Shura Council Ahmed bin Nasser Al Fadala, read out the agenda of the session, and the minutes of the previous session were approved.

During the session, the Council reviewed the request for general discussion submitted by a number of Their Excellencies members, on the delay in medical appointments in the public health sector.

In this regard, the members of the Council praised the attention given by the wise leadership to the health sector, which has witnessed a great renaissance and remarkable development over the past years, which led to the classification of the State of Qatar among the developed countries in the provision of health care.

The members noted that the Shura Council, based on its concern for the interests of citizens, finding their needs, and cooperating with various authorities in the country to improve the institutional performance of all sectors, improve the services provided to citizens, and the need to address their deficiencies, the Council has noticed a delay in medical appointments, some of which extend for months.

The members of the Shura Council pointed out that this problem exacerbates the suffering of patients, affects the quality of treatment provided to them, and sometimes forces them to resort to private hospitals to avoid long waiting lists.

Their Excellencies the members of the Council appreciated the efforts made by the Ministry of Public Health to address this problem and reduce the waiting period for appointments, stressing at the same time the need to study the problem from various dimensions to find out its causes and find radical solutions to it.

After extensive discussions by the members of the Shura Council, and presenting their views to find solutions to the problem of late appointments, the Council decided to refer the request for general discussion to the Public Services and Utilities Committee for study and to submit a report on it to the Council.

During the session, the Council approved a draft law amending some provisions of Law No. (18) of 2017 regarding public hygiene, as stated by the esteemed government, after reviewing the report of the Public Services and Utilities Committee on it, and discussing the provisions of the draft law by Their Excellencies the members of the Council.

The draft law included a number of amendments that complement the state's strategic plan to preserve the environment and pay attention to public hygiene.

The session continued, as the Council approved a request to extend the work of the Public Services and Utilities Committee to study the request for a general discussion about the violations of some individuals and companies and their impact on the wild environment, and to study the request for a general discussion on organizing and monitoring domestic workers recruitment offices.