TOPIC:
Health Care in Saudi Arabia
Introduction
According to the 1970 statistics, there were only 74 hospitals present in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and about 9,039 beds in total. These hospitals were not equipped with up to date technology and qualified staff. In some sever conditions; people had to visit European or other countries to operate themselves. In 1980’s many foreigners started to come and settled in this country for their jobs / careers. The main cities of the country started to get populated and the need for Healthcare system has arisen.
The Saudi Government proposed its first five-year plans for the development of healthcare system in year 1970. This plan consists of building the infrastructure for the health care system, hospitals, laboratories, research centers, and to hire qualified staff from the foreign countries. Saudi Government has realized that they had nothing choice except to depend on foreigners for their healthcare system. That is why they have started to encourage Saudis to pursue their careers in this field by providing full-fee scholarship programs to their nationals (Booz, 2007).
After this five year plans, the healthcare system has started to develop in this country with a steady pace. The Government has performed its duties and responsibilities efficiently. They have been able to grow the amount of their hospitals to 350 and total number of beds to 48,000 by the end of year 2005 (Booz, 2007).
However, even after this tremendous improvement there is still a lot of need to develop healthcare system due to the number of reasons. The reasons include population growth, aging of the society, increasing trend of obesity, diabetes and other diseases. Also, this sector needs not only money or funds but also expertise from the foreign countries in the form of technology and qualified staff. Presently, Saudi Government is funding all the projects in order to meet the demand of healthcare.
According to the experts, Saudi Government alone would not be sufficient to meet the growing demand of healthcare in the country. It would badly impact other sectors of the economy, if the government put most of their resources in this sector. Private sector as well has to participate and help in meeting the growing demand of healthcare system in Saudi Arabia.
Ministry of Health (MOH)
In Saudi Arabia, it is the responsibility of the Ministry of the Health to keep an eye on healthcare system and hospitals in both public and private sectors. Currently the Ministry of Health is operating 62 percent of the hospitals and 53 percent of the clinics. The remaining proportion of hospitals and clinics are operating under several other government agencies, like Defense Ministry, National Guard etc (Zawya, 2009).
Government funds healthcare in two ways i.e. funding in public sector of healthcare and also in private sector by giving them subsidies. Government has realized that contribution from the private sector is needed in this sector. Despite of supporting the developmental projects of healthcare industry, government is also financing the public spending on the health care. A major portion of the country’s budget i.e. about 10 – 12% is devoted to the only public spending on healthcare. For Saudi citizens Healthcare is free and for other it depends on the medical sponsorship packages offered by their companies. The private sector contribution towards the development of the sector is only 25 percent. In order to increase that number, Ministry of Health and Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority are working together. These both entities have set goals i.e. to create effective regulatory framework and business environment, in order to attract private healthcare industries.
Government and Private Hospitals
In year 2006, the numbers of private hospitals were about 123 as compared to the 254 government hospitals. Most of the public hospitals were under the supervision of Ministry of Health. Performance wise private hospitals were better and overstaffed than government hospitals. Private sector spending of around 15.4 billion Saudi Riyals was made in year 2007. The ratio of doctors to bed of government i.e. 0.7 was less as compared to the private hospitals i.e. more than 1 (Bedu, 2008).
Among the private sector hospitals, the key players are Saudi German Hospitals Group, The Almana Healthcare Group and Al-Hammadi Hospital. Saudi German group claims to be the leading group in the Africa and Middle East region. Many public hospitals were built by the organizations for their own employees e.g. Ministry of Health, Saudi Aramco, Espicom etc (Bedu, 2008).
Government Hospitals treats those individuals either who are the employees of the hospital or employees of the particular organization that are entitled to get treatment in the institution. Apart from that, they also treat employees on to the basis of referrals. Government Hospitals provides treatments to all the patients free of cost and due to that reason patients have to wait for their turn. On the other hand private hospitals treat every individual who has either strong medical insurance coverage or ability to pay money. Both sectors i.e. public and private hospitals have multinational staff available for the treatment of the patients. Private hospitals are liberal in a way that they have combined waiting area for both men and women while the public hospitals have separate waiting area for men and for women.
Healthcare Insurance in Saudi Arabia
The steady increase in demand for the healthcare system and due to less contribution from the private sector, have forced the Government to think about several measures of other financing. The government came up with the Insurance and proposed the reform, along with encouragement of private sector reform. According to the insurance reform, it is required by the employers or companies to obtain private health insurances for their employees. However, the implementation of this policy was not easy as at that time there were no effective insurance regulations in place and insurance industry consists of very limited amount of companies.
A separate body was made to deal and promote the healthcare insurance system in the country. This body is named as Cooperative Health Insurance Council and it is operating under the Ministry of Health. Since then, Saudi Arabia promoted this sector of the country as well. And now there are more than 14 insurance companies in the country providing wide range of healthcare facilities to the companies and individuals depending on the insurance package. Many of the insurance plans offered by the insurance companies have some limitations as well. They limit the costs for treatment in a given year, number of days allowed to spend in hospital, age limit etc (Zawya, 2009).
Insurance companies have different insurance plans for different set of individuals and organizations. Firstly, each individual or an organization has to buy a specific insurance plan according to the need. Usually organizations have to deposit the amount for the insurance plans on yearly basis whereas individuals have an option to either deposit it annually or monthly. Whenever the need for the healthcare service arises, an individual or employee has to visit one of the hospitals / clinics that are present in the list provided by a particular insurance company. In the start, doctors or professionals of that hospital have to fill out the claim form of the insurance company. Finally, insurance company approves the cases based on the insurance plan of an individual and pays to the hospital. In case of the organizational employees, companies gives the payment to the hospital and later on they claim these amounts from the insurance companies by presenting the forms and bill receipts of the hospitals.
Future Concerns
The increasing trend in population and health expenditures are forcing the Government to bring some significant change in the development for the healthcare system. It is estimated that by the year 2016 the total population will become approximately 30 million i.e. growth rate of more than 20%. It has also been estimated that the health expenditures will grow even faster than the population growth. The need for the hospitals bed will grow from 51 thousand to 70 thousand and for physicians from 40 thousand to 54 thousand. Some other future concerns for the Saudi Government would be as follows (Healthcare Indicators, 2006);
- It has been estimated that by the year 2020, the total number of people over 60 years age will b increased from 1 million to 2.5 million. That will increase the healthcare demand and expenditures dramatically.
- The proportion of overweight people in Saudi Arabia is increasing. The Body Mass Index of average local national is 30kg / m2 and the global average is 23kg / m2. Obesity brings lot of other diseases that will also increase the need for healthcare.
- The costs of healthcare are increasing rapidly and it will worsen the conditions further.
The Ministry of Health has to see these trends and plan aggressively in such a manner that will not increase burden on the Saudi Government. They have to think about the multiple financing options.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that the healthcare system of Saudi Arabia is not fulfilling all the requirements of the country and the Government is bearing a lot of healthcare expenditures burden. Private sector participation is very important for the development of the healthcare system in the country. Ministry of Health has worked efficiently over the past few years. Performance wise both private and public hospitals are satisfactory but public hospitals has more delay time as compared to the private hospitals. The future trends show a high demand for the development of healthcare system in Saudi Arabia. Ministry of Health and Government have to devise plans in such a way that would be enough for the developmental needs and not hurt the other sectors of the economy.
References
- Zawya (2009), “Saudi Arabia Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Forecast (Market Profile)”. Retrieved at: October 2, 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.zawya.com/printstory.cfm?storyid=EIU20081101211439546&l=000000080828 - Bedu (2008), “Saudi Arabia: Private versus Public Hospitals”. Retrieved at: October 1, 2009. Retrieved from: http://americanbedu.com/2008/06/26/saudi-arabia-private-versus-public-government-hospitals/
- Booz Allen Hamilton (2007), “The New Saudi Arabia healthcare market”. Retrieved at: October 1, 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.ameinfo.com/113280.html - Healthcare Indicators (2006), “Ministry of Health”, Department of Statistics. Retrieved at: October 1, 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.moh.gov.sa/statistics/S1427/Chapter%201.pdf - “The Healthcare system of Saudi Arabia”. Retrieved at: October 1, 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.hziegler.com/locations/middle-east/saudi-arabia/articles/healthcare-system-of-saudi-arabia.html - “Saudi Arabia Healthcare Insurance”. Retrieved at: October 1, 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.mapsofworld.com/saudi-arabia/health/health-insurance.html - “Health Insurance in Saudi Arabia”. Retrieved at October 2, 2009. Retrieved from:
http://www.justlanded.nl/english/Saudi-Arabia/Saudi-Arabia-Guide/Health/Health-Insurance