JEDDAH, 24 February 2007 — Saudi Arabia plans to establish a national cooperative fund to provide free health insurance coverage to all of its nationals after privatizing state-owned hospitals, according to Khaled Al-Mirghalani, spokesman for the Health Ministry.
“The new health insurance scheme will cover all Saudi citizens, except those who are already given coverage by major companies,” he told Arab News.
Saudis receiving insurance coverage, under the new plan, will be entitled to receive free medical service at private and public hospitals, the spokesman said. The new system is likely to be implemented next year when all government hospitals will be privatized and brought under companies or groups, after separating them from the ministry.
Mirghalani said the fund, to be financed by the government, would provide health insurance coverage to more than 12 million citizens. The new system comes as part of a major restructuring plan for the country’s health sector.
Spelling out the major features of the new health plan, Mirghalani said the ministry would continue to run the country’s primary health care centers, provide child and mother care and take steps for protection against chronic and contagious diseases.
He said the country’s seven million expatriates would be provided health care through insurance companies. The cooperative health insurance scheme will be implemented for Saudis next year, covering government employees at the education and health ministries and municipalities and other departments.
“We have already presented the project to higher authorities for approval and it is being studied by the Higher Committee for Administrative Reorganization,” Mirghalani said.
The project will cover all the 200 hospitals under the ministry. Investments in the Kingdom’s private and public health sectors are estimated at SR500 billion with an annual expenditure of some SR50 billion. In the 200 hospitals run by the ministry, there are 28,500 beds, 17,448 doctors, 900 pharmacists, 36,710 nurses and 18,723 support staff. Of the total number of 34,600 doctors at private and public hospitals, 22 percent are Saudi. The sector also employs 5,530 pharmacists, 68,089 nurses and 40,000 support staff.
The ministry’s executive bylaw, which was issued in 2003, allows it to sell and rent some of its hospitals to private investors or companies. However, the Cabinet must approve any proposal regarding hospital privatization by the health minister. The privatization, “can be carried out either by selling a hospital or renting it to a private investor or a company or changing it into a corporation owned by the state and run on a commercial basis,” the bylaw said. The law insists that such privatization moves should not disrupt public health services in the country or reduce the quality of services or make them prohibitively expensive.
