Introduction
In the 24th of December in 2015, a fire started in one of public hospitals in Saudi Arabia. The hospital is called Jazan General Hospital, in Jazan city located in the southwestern region. It is a governmental hospital that belongs to the ministry of health of Saudi Arabia.
The fire was tragic, caused the death of 25 people and 127 injuries. The crisis grabbed media attention and different official entities in Saudi Arabia.
This report will describe the situation and analyze the communication management of this crisis, how the ministry handled it, the communication effectiveness and some ethical issues. In addition, the report will provide some recommendations to handle such crisis.
Situation Description
Crisis Situation Overview
The hospital in which the fire happened is located in the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia. That region has a low population number. The fire started early morning on Thursday, the 24th of December 2015. The tragedy is high, as 25 people died and 127 were injured. The numbers are big and that caused the incident to be considered as a national disaster.
People in social media such as Tiwtter and Facebook started talking about the fire. Videos and pictures were spread around and people shared them. Some citizens volunteered to rescue people from the fire and help in evacuation.
Initial response from the ministry was to acknowledge the fire incident. It stated also that the evacuation of children was successful and all children were rescued.
A later announcement from the ministry is to assign a call center number for patients’ families to call and ask about patients’ situation.
A TV interview with the general manager of health affairs in Jazan was conducted on the same day. The manager claimed that the building was prepared with the safety requirements and standards, although the interviewer challenged him and showed some documents that states the opposite.
The newly assigned minister, Khalid Al-Faleh, was interviewed after that on the location of the crisis. He criticized those who volunteered to rescue people and claimed that they made the crisis worse as they obstructed civil defense and government officials to do their work. This criticism was not received well by the public. The minister had been in the ministry for only 8 months before the crisis.
Some witnesses claimed that some emergency exits of the hospital were locked up by chains. People were not able to evacuate the building because these exits were locked. However, the ministry denied this information.
Few days after the crisis, families of victims who died in the fire refused to sign on papers of corpse receipt. They talked to the media and said those papers do not tell the truth. The papers said the reason of death is normal, and the location of the death is not the hospital. This created a huge negative reaction from the audience.
Three weeks after the crisis, the Investigation’s results were announced by the minister in a press conference, admitting that the building was not designed per safety requirements and blaming the civil defense of not doing a good job in the crisis.
Ethical Implications
Three things were not received very well ethically, which are:
1- The fact that the building was not safe and did not follow safety requirements shows carelessness from ministry officials and contradict the ministry values of quality and professionalism.
2- The statement in which the minster claims that volunteers obstructed government officials to rescue victims was received as a dummy reason to blame others. It sounded like an attempt to hold public or volunteers partially responsible for the tragedy and avoid taking full responsibility
3- The official papers that victims’ families were asked to sign and did not state the facts of the death can be considered as another crisis. Changing or hiding the facts is unethical behavior that requires serious investigation and external audit.
Organization’s Mission, Vision, Values and Culture
The Saudi ministry of health states its mission, vision and values in its website
Mission
“The provision of healthcare at all levels, promotion of general health and prevention of diseases, in addition to developing the laws and legislations regulating both the governmental and private health sectors. Aside from that, MOH is accountable for performance monitoring in health institutions, along with the research activity and academic training in the field of health investment.” - (Ministry of health website, Mission)
Vision
The ministry vision is vague, long, not clear, and has many elements that may cause a confusion between the vision and the objectives.
“The Ministry of Health (MOH), by way of its objectives, policies and projects included in this strategy, seeks to accomplish a promising future vision; namely, delivering best-quality integrated and comprehensive healthcare services
MOH Vision 2020:
• Carrying health conditions or health status of Saudi inhabitants to the best and highest possible level, in terms of justice and equality in providing healthcare, and in terms of effectiveness and the possibility of incurring the financial burden of the treatment and healthcare. In doing so, the MOH takes as its target meeting citizens’ aspirations in this regard, by providing them with high-quality general and specialized health services, and covering all the population with these services.
• Creating a sole and exclusive entity to formulate health policies including health insurance services, etc. (such as operating the recently established Health Services Council.)
• Adopting a public and national health strategy which focuses of the main morbidity burdens; including non-communicable diseases, nutrition, reproductive health, smoking (tobacco-use), AIDS, traffic accidents, and injuries.
• The system must have an effective and fair method for estimating risks and benefits.
• Working to diversify sources of revenues to finance the system effectively. These sources must include also public revenues and insurance premiums, in addition to the equally allocated costs and taxes.” - (Ministry of health website, Vision)

Values
The ministry stated 8 values in its website.
• Patient first
• Justice
• Professionalism
• Quality
• Honesty and transparency
• Teamwork
• Initiative and productivity
• Societal involvement
(Ministry of health website, Values)
Culture
The culture of ministry varies from a region to another, and from a hospital to another. The culture is not unified, emphasized, nor built by leadership.
Analysis
Lines of Communications
Ministry of health used different channels and line of communications which is a positive thing from their side. They used their Twitter account and website to communicate key messages. In addition, the minister himself was interviewed in TV channels and these interviews were shared in news websites and social media.
Were the channels open for audience to ask questions? Partially yes. For affiliate audience (JWI 505, Week 9, Lecture 1), especially the patients and their families, the ministry has assigned a call center number to ask about the patient situation but not the crisis itself. The ministry used the channels to communicate its messages, but not to answer questions about the crisis, causes, and other issues. It is still possible that they screened public reactions before communicating messages, but that does not mean they addressed the questions and issues of people, especially external audience.
Ownership and Acknowledgment of Contribution
At first reaction, the ministry acknowledged the disaster, but that reaction did not state any admission or confession of contribution to the problem. The initial public announcement from the ministry’s media center mentioned what went well in the evacuation.
The minister has admitted the mistakes committed by the ministry, but he did not blame himself or hold himself accountable for the crisis. He had been in the ministry for 8 months when the crisis happened, and he did not show any belonging to the ministry. It might be perceived that he did not want people to blame him or he did nothing wrong. In the press conference after the investigation, he admitted that the building was not designed nor equipped with the safety requirements. However, he also put some blames on the civil defense of not handling the disaster very well. This tells you that the ministry did not want to take full ownership or responsibility.
Candor
The level of candor to media was limited to things that cannot be denied. Admitting the disaster and the tragedy is good. But candor was not there in official responses from leaders on the same day of the fire. For instance, the claim that the building followed safety requirements.
In addition, at the end, people were not aware of the real reason of why 25 people died in that crisis and whether any fire in any hospital will cause the same disaster.
The reports and papers that provided to the families of people who died in the disaster were incorrect. This is a dishonest move and a total opposite of candor.
Use of Media
Media usage was good to deliver key messages, especially formal media channels which mainly controlled by the government. Also newspapers and press conferences were used.
Sharing News
Ministry of health overall shared good and bad news. However, the bad news was shared late and not in the spot.
Communication Consistency
The minister’s messages were consistent all the time. However, there were some contradictory statements and information from different leaders. For example, the contradiction between what the general manager of health affairs claimed that the building was safe and what the minister announced later as the building was not up to safety standards.
Employees and Customers Involvement
Based on an interview with an employee, the ministry did not communicate internally to their employees regarding the crisis. They only received messages regarding a safety plan and what the procedure to ensure security. No information provided internally on the crisis.
Customers, the patients and their families, were provided with a call center for questions.
Alignment with Mission and Values
The disaster would not happen if the hospital followed the values, or the ministry committed to its mission as it states “MOH is accountable for performance monitoring in health institutions”. Some may argue performance does not mean facilities’ safety, but the ministry is also responsible for laws and regulations which must cover the facilities. As they say in the mission “developing the laws and legislations”
Honesty and transparency is one of the values. However, as discussed in the candor section in this report, honesty and transparency value was not followed.

Recommendations
The minister himself can do a better job in the crisis. The actions by the ministry overall or those who were dealing directly with the crisis have some flaws. The recommendations in this section are mainly for the ministry and some are for the minister. The recommendations are summarized in the following points:
1. The ministry should change the vision, to be more clear, precise and to make it appear as a general guide for future decisions. Also, the values should be emphasized and rewarded to ensure ethical conduct. For example: Honesty and transparency. Values should be explained and translated into behaviors. The ministry should observe, communicate, teach, measure, and reward these behaviors. (JWI 505, Week 8, Lecture 1)
2. The ministry should have initial communication with internal audience very early. There must be an alignment between the ministry and its employees regarding the crisis. The employees should not hear the news as everybody else. They should be ambassadors for the ministry. (Wenier, 2006)
3. Leaders should get internal information as much as they can. They should dig deep to understand more and should not assume their employees will give them the bad news. (JWI 505, Week 9 Lecture 1).
4. The ministry should have a crisis communication plan, with defining team, spokespeople, first response, communication channels, target audiences, a place to manage the crisis, and media usage. (Wenier, 2006)
5. The initial response to public should be honest and transparent. It is better not to be denial or defense (JWI 505, Week 9, Lecture 1). It is fine to admit mistakes or say “we do not know and we will inform you as we have update”. Initial response by the general manager of health affairs was denial to any wrong doing. And that was a mistake
6. The minister should communicate and admit his mistakes as a head of the ministry. This will show his willingness to change as a person in managing the ministry and also will encourage candor.
7. The minister should not try to blame other parties or stakeholders. Even if the crowd or volunteers caused some troubles, people want the minister to be sorry and apologize. Not to blame others. This is part of acknowledging the problem and taking ownership. (JWI 505, Week 9, lecture 1)
8. The ministry should be ahead and communicate information and details before others do. Witnesses will have their words and they will inform people of some details. These details might be altered, changed or faked. Being ahead in communication is the only way to prevent and control altered or fake information to spread (Welch, 2005, Chapter 10)
9. The ministry should be frank and open to patients affected and their families. Being transparent and honest with them is essential (Epstein, 2003). Such honesty and transparency will make the customers (patients and families) work for the ministry as ambassadors.
10. The employees staff should provide the right information and data in the reports and papers. Candor is important even if it may cause legal issues (JWI 505, Week 7, Lecture 1). Changing the cause of death is a serious mistake that will cost the ministry to lose the trust of its audience.
11. The ministry should centralize the information (Weiner, 2006) to avoid messages and information inconsistency. For example, only media center should communicate with the public officially.
12. The ministry should create an information center, might be under media center, and make itself available and accessible so public can ask questions and get the right answers (Weiner, 2006)
Conclusion
Saudi Arabian ministry of health was faced a tragic disaster caused by a fire in one of its hospitals. 25 people died and more were injured. The crisis communication management was not very effective. Some messages included denial or blaming other parties. The minister seemed unattached to the ministry due to his recent appointment as a minister 8 months before the crisis.
This report discussed and analyzed the major problems or mistakes and provided some recommendations to the ministry as a whole and also to the minster as a head of the ministry.