RIYADH, 7 August — Investment opportunities in health care and cooperation between the public and private health services will be the theme of “Investing in Arab Health”, a conference to be held in London on Aug. 21 and 22. Sponsored by the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center of Riyadh, the conference will provide a platform for Arab health ministers to share their experiences, especially of the public-private sector interplay in health management and investing in the Arab health care market. The KFSH said that a number of distinguished speakers will address the conference, including Dr. Anwar Al-Jabarti, chief executive director of the hospital; Dr. Sultan Bahabri, chief executive officer of KFSH in Jeddah; Dr. Abdullah ibn Sulaiman Al-Amro, acting executive director of health outreach and business affairs; and Dr. Tariq Linjawi, executive director of medical and clinical operation at KFSH Jeddah. The hospital has already signed a contract with Naseej to create a medical gateway for KFSH on the Internet, under the name “Health Gulf”, to provide advanced medical services. Dr. Al-Jabarti said the conference was significant in that it would address the international trends in investment in the health care sector while also seeking to raise the standard of biotechnology. Dr. Al-Amro said the central message of his Department of Business Affairs was that KFSH experts were available to visit health care centers in other regions and thereby dispense with the need for costly medical treatment abroad. The medical outreach program is set for major expansion under the auspices of the Imam Charity Society for the Care of Cancer Patients, which plans to open more branches across the Kingdom. Saudi medical experts and hospital executives have identified enormous investment opportunities in the health care sector. The soon-to-be introduced mandatory health insurance scheme for foreigners residing in the country, for instance, will increase money spent on health insurance from SR4 to SR15 billion. According to Subhi Batterji, president of the Saudi-German Hospital in Jeddah, feasibility studies conducted by the hospital group has a market potential of up to SR30 billion if the health insurance scheme is extended to the Saudis. Dr. Abdul Ilah Saati, a health specialist, said a total of 61 new government hospitals with 5,750 beds would be established in different parts of the Kingdom within the framework of the national development plan. The objective is to maintain a ratio of 2.2 beds for every 1,000 patients. The Kingdom’s population is estimated at 22 million, including expatriates.
