JEDDAH, 20 October 2006 — The Health Ministry is planning to establish a public corporation to manage and operate government hospitals in the country, according to Dr. Khaled Mirghalani, its spokesman.
He said the corporation would be managed by the private sector with government oversight. The ministry also plans to set up a fund for health insurance, he said, adding that the finance minister would be the chairman of the fund’s board of directors.
With the establishment of the new cooperation all hospitals in the country would be run by the private sector, the spokesman said. However, he pointed out that primary health care centers would continue to be managed by the ministry.
According to Mirghalani, the ministry came up with the new proposal after observing the poor performance of contracting companies that currently run government hospitals. The ministry had urged contractors to revise their offers in order to improve services.
Mirghalani said the ministry had presented a proposal to the Finance Ministry for the self-operation of hospitals in place of contracting companies. “We have observed that self-operation is the best option,” Al-Riyadh Arabic daily quoted him as saying.
Many contracting companies have expressed their objection to the ministry’s plan, saying it would increase the cost of operation. Ibrahim Al-Anqari, vice president for operations at United Medical Group, said the decision would lead to flight of Saudi funds and closure of many companies. “The ministry’s management will increase expenditures as it offers higher salaries to doctors compared to contracting companies,” he pointed out. “The ministry’s decision also goes against the government’s privatization strategy,” Anqari said. He also claimed that contracting companies were recruiting good doctors and other paramedical staff to run hospitals.
The move to establish a public corporation to run government hospitals comes at a time when the Kingdom plans to impose health insurance on all the seven million expatriates in the country.
Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie said recently that the seven million expatriates in the Kingdom would come under the cooperative health insurance scheme by the end of this year. “We have made all arrangements for the successful implementation of the scheme,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying.
Health insurance has been made mandatory for expatriates working in the country who will require a certificate proving their membership in an insurance scheme to obtain or renew work-residency permits (iqamas).
He said number of clients that have joined the cooperative health insurance program has increased 335.5 percent, from 60,179 to 262,055 clients, within five weeks. “We have approved 393 health service providers in different parts of the Kingdom,” said the minister.
According to Mirghalani, health insurance coverage is available throughout the Kingdom. “We have not excluded health-related firms such as health insurance companies and private health insurance providers from joining the scheme,” he said.
Meanwhile, an economic report published by National Commercial Bank said the Kingdom would require SR22.3 billion in investment through 2010 to meet the goals of expanding the capacities of the hospitals to meet demand.
