Years ago when Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi was Saudi health minister, I wrote an article entitled “How’s Your Health?” Later I received a letter from him saying: “I hope the day comes when people meet each other without asking: ‘How’s your health?’”
Many years have passed since I wrote that article. However, Al-Gosaibi’s wish never came true. The question didn’t disappear or change. In fact, things worsened so that health issues became so complicated that they became the gossip of daily life.
I don’t know if this is happening only in Saudi society or if this is a global problem. If this issue is one of our “specialties,” then there is no justification for it.
Nothing, because of the state of our public hospitals, worries people more than their health. The large number of patients exceeds the capacity of public health institutions. On the other hand, private hospitals cost huge amounts of money, which are beyond the financial means of many.
On Jan. 12, I wrote an article entitled “Who Is Responsible?” in which I told of a poor Saudi couple who could not find an incubator for their newborn in a government hospital and had no choice but to abandon the child in a private hospital.
Their bill reached SR307,000 until a philanthropist paid the bill and the child was returned to its parents.
The story is being repeated. Last Thursday, local newspapers reported a story of an Ethiopian expatriate putting one of his twins up for adoption so he could pay the hospital bill.
The fact that he needs financial support prompted him to find a family willing to pay for adopting his son so he could get the child’s twin out of the private hospital.
The bill was SR100,000 as of last Wednesday, including the cost of his wife’s caesarean and an incubator.
Such news is bad for our health system in the absence of mandatory health insurance that expatriates living here legally must have. Public hospitals can’t provide them with the health care they need. They can’t even help citizens who have first call on their services.
Talking about hospitals and health issues becomes tiresome and boring. Despite the huge amount of money dedicated to the health sector, the reality of things and the status of hospitals don’t add up.
If the Health Ministry spent its entire budget to provide medical insurance cards for expatriates living in the country to go to private hospitals, it would have been easier and more practical. So will the ministry do that?
