MADINAH: The government’s public health care sector provides 80 percent of medical services in the Kingdom, said Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie yesterday while delivering a speech on the third day of the Knowledge Economy Forum in Madinah.
“Investment in health care is a direct investment in citizens. The government spends more money on health care, because this indirectly contributes to the growth of the country’s GDP,” Al-Manie said.
He said that once the 97 hospitals, which are currently being built at a cost of SR17 billion, are completed in 2012 the number of hospitals run by the Ministry of Health would reach 350.
“One of the major challenges facing the Saudi health sector is the free health care offered to the 3 million Haj and 10 million Umrah pilgrims who visit the Kingdom annually. For instance, many pilgrims suffer from heart problems, which require expensive medical equipment and expert care,” Al-Manie said.
While delivering his paper, entitled “Infrastructure for Innovation,” professor Abbas Al-Jammal of Stanford University said, “Innovation is fundamental in attracting investment to a knowledge city, but innovation could not be bought from the market.”
Al-Jammal identified poor investment in human intellectual resources as a major stumbling block in the way of knowledge-based economic cities. “The Kingdom should encourage innovative thinking besides changing legal and social regulations so that brilliant brains could flock to the country,” he said.
He cited as examples India and China, which were not considered technologically advanced just a few years ago. “But now they are counted among the technologically advanced countries. They managed to do that by investing in human intelligence,” he said, stressing the need for a 25-year plan to develop the Kingdom technologically.
Participants on the second day of the forum were unanimous on the need for huge investments in research and development.
Meanwhile, Madinah Gov. Prince Abdulaziz ibn Majed, who inaugurated the forum on Sunday, yesterday hosted a dinner party in honor of the guests.
