World Health Day: Belgium’s Saudi embassy hosts women’s health discussion

World Health Day: Belgium’s Saudi embassy hosts women’s health discussion

RIYADH: The Belgium embassy in Riyadh hosted a discussion on women and children's health on Wednesday to coincide with World Health Day. Ambassador Dominique Mineur was joined by Dr. Nada Alsahan, an assistant professor at the College of Medicine at Alfaisal University and a maternal-fetal medicine consultant at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center in Riyadh. Dr. Marleen Temmerman, a gynecologist and head of the centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at Aga Khan University in Kenya, also took part in the discussion. The virtual conversation discussed the importance of early detection of diseases in women, women's rights, gender-based violence, and access to modern healthcare to promote women and children's health globally. Alsahan discussed the importance of women's health for healthy societies as a whole. "Healthy women make healthy families and hopefully healthy communities and then at the end a healthy nation and a healthy world," she said. The consultant outlined the advances Saudi Arabia has made in improving women's health care and the initiatives they are hoping to continue under Vision 2030. Since 2004, the Kingdom introduced a premarital screening program for diseases that might affect couples and a national screening program for newborn children. Saudi