WHAT would be the individual citizen’s share if the budget of the Health Ministry were distributed in cash? If it would be enough for the citizen to obtain a health insurance card in order to have treatment in a private hospital, then it would certainly be in the public interest to abolish the ministry. Especially is this so in view of the unbearable misery and agony so many citizens experience and have to endure at government hospitals.
It is beyond one’s imagination to ask a kidney patient to wait for months while approval is forthcoming for him or her to undergo regular dialysis. The same is true for heart patients. How can such urgent cases be asked to wait?
This brings to mind the sad story of a pregnant Saudi woman who lost her child because two government hospitals in Riyadh refused — due to complicated administrative procedures — to admit her despite the seriousness of her condition.
According to Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper, Al-Shumaisi Hospital refused to admit the pregnant woman because she had been referred by a private hospital. Another government hospital refused admittance, saying that it had no empty bed. In the process of going from one to another, the woman lost her child.
Many Saudis are unable to afford the expense of private hospitals. A large number of them are unable to pay their bills in the private hospitals to which they had gone after failing to receive treatment in government hospitals.
What can a patient in a serious condition do when government hospitals refuse to accept him or her? The only solution is to seek treatment in a private hospital, come what may.
Many pressing problems with direct effects on our lives can wait. We may bear, though with difficulty, to live with the numerous holes in the streets, the water shortage, the sewage problems, the rising cost of living and the high rents, but we cannot live with sickness. There is no pavement for the diseases to wait on.
If most allocations for projects in any general budget were directed to the Ministry of Health to improve the conditions of hospitals and to upgrade health care for citizens in various parts of the Kingdom, people would understand and appreciate this since good health is the No. 1 priority in everyone’s life. What can a destitute patient who cannot find a place in a general hospital do? Must he beg for an empty bed?
