AMMAN — Minister of Interior and acting
Minister of Health Mazen Al-Faraya on Tuesday stressed the need for cooperation
between the public and private sectors and explained that the relationship with
the private sector is solid and built on cooperation.
اضافة اعلان
However, the minister added that “if some
private hospitals refrain from providing their services to COVID patients, the
government would take control.” These statements came during a meeting attended
by Ministry of Health Secretary General Wael Al-Hayajneh, and head of Lower
House Oversight Committee on COVID-19 affairs Khalil Atiyeh.
In an interview with Jordan News,
Atiyeh stressed the need to commit to preventive measures because the
epidemiological situation has reached a critical stage, especially in the
central regions of the Kingdom.
Atiyeh’s statement came as Reuters reported
clerks at the largest cemetery in Jordan on the outskirts of the capital saw at
least 50 burials on Tuesday, a day after the health ministry announced a 109
COVID-19 deaths, the Kingdom’s highest daily tally.
The surge in the last two months, blamed on
the fast spread of the variant first identified in Britain, has put Jordan’s
infections and deaths above most of its neighbors and reverses months of
success in containing the outbreak, Reuters reported.
For his part, the head of the Private
Hospitals Association, Fawzi Al-Hammouri, told Jordan News that the
private sector is “very cooperative”, adding that four private hospitals are
currently being used by the Ministry of Health, adding that only 250 beds
remain open in intensive care units at private hospitals.
”We hope the daily infections don’t continue
this way, otherwise there will be a real problem in the availability of
isolation rooms and intensive care units,” Hammouri told Reuters.
Legal expert Haytham Arifej told Jordan
News that that the government has the right to seize and run any private
sector hospitals if necessary, in accordance with paragraph “D” of Article 4 of
the Defense Law, which states that if the Defense Law is applied, the Prime
Minister has the right to confiscate movable and immovable property.
Therefore, according to Arifij, the prime
minister has the right to control and seize property as long as it is deemed to
the public’s benefit.
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