Saudi Arabia allocates the highest per capita on health care. Hospitals are built in every city and every town. And there are plans to build many health care centers. Health care is free for all citizens and even working expatriates are guaranteed health care with insurance by their companies.
Although, we can’t say that our health care system is the most perfect in the world but at least the government is making efforts to improve the system to facilitate the masses. People often question reports about the unavailability of beds in hospitals even in the intensive care units (ICU).
Saudi Arabia is a vast country with many cities, towns and villages. And just like any other country including the most advanced like the United States, it is very hard to have fully equipped ICUs in all the hospitals in every nook and corner of the country. This is not due to a lack of funds or resources; it is because of a shortage of physicians and paramedics. And even if we bring more physicians from abroad, the issue will not be resolved. So, why is there a shortage of ICU units around the Kingdom? Ironically, the reason for the shortage is not the Ministry of Health or our system. The truth is that about 30 percent of the ICUs are occupied by very young patients most of whom get critically injured in road accidents. Saudi Arabia has the highest number of road fatalities and report the highest number of severely injured patients, which simply take a huge chunk of the hospitals’ assets and energy.
Sadly, everyday we hear about car crashes with more than one death and more people badly injured. Many of these car crashes happen on a very extensive highway system, which some time take a long time to get to the crash scene. This phenomenon is costing the Saudi national budget billions of dollars and simply draining the Saudi Ministry of Health assets. The money being lost in highway crashes can be allocated on building better hospitals, improving the health care system or hiring more hospital staff. Apart from the material loses, which include billions of dollars incurred in the form of damaged vehicles we are losing many young lives. In Saudi hospitals we see many young men paralyzed due to car crashes.
Saudi streets are very wide and most Saudi highways are at least two- lane highways and in addition to that most cars owned by Saudis are the latest models and are imported with the highest safety standards required. But our youth are not taught or givens lessons of how to respect the value of life and the value of the cars they are driving. The highway fatalities are putting unnecessary burden on the health care system. And having the SAHER system to control the traffic or check speeding vehicles is not enough. A car going 10 kilometers above the speed limit is not as dangerous as dangerous moves or passing another car from the left side. Many rules have to be changed and traffic police must be trained to enforce the law. Nowadays, there is a great need for evaluating driving rules.
Parents must be held accountable for the actions of their children. And it is important to think of the Saudi social habit of having the father buy the car for the child. Saudi youths must work, even take up part-time jobs to earn money and then buy a car from their own pocket. This way he will realize the value of the car but if we keep buying a new car after a crash, then the young men will not know the value of the car or how hard the father had worked to buy it. There is a difference between loving your child and spoiling him and making him careless. He must be taught how to respect the right of others on the road before he is given a driving license. And finally, if we learn from true Islamic teachings about behavior among others and the respect of the road, then many kids will care about their lives.
