Reforming the Saudi health care system
Health care system is the most important service in any country. Unlike education, which starts when a child is around five to six years old, it is a service that starts even before the baby is born. Ultrasound is done and records are maintained from the start of the conception. The health care for any human doesn’t stop until the person is dead. In another word, health care is needed for everybody all the time. People know who their health minister is, but only few would know their commerce minister.
Saudi health care system is the most unique in the world. It is free of charge and if the treatment is not available in the Kingdom, then the patient is taken to the best medical facilities in the world, namely the United States. And on many occasions, if regular airline flights are not able to provide the comfort level a patient requires because of the type of his illness or he is in need of in-flight medical attention, then a private jet is used to transfer the patient with medical staff attending to him. And this service is a kind of facility that is not only extended to the elite in Saudi Arabia, even though it is true that more elites are enjoying this kind of service because of their official positions, but I know Saudi patients who were flown to Houston Medical Center aboard private jets and they are from the Saudi middle class. There are thousands of Saudis who had been transferred to top medical centers in the US such as Mayo Clinic and John Hopkins. And in addition of this service, the patient can be accompanied by a family member and the accompanying person will receive a daily allowance while the patient is being treated. For the information of the readers, this kind of services is only given in Saudi Arabia and five other Gulf states. But, there is one problem in health care system of any country. No matter what kind of a health care system is provided, people always want more. So, why do people in Saudi Arabia want health care reforms?
Saudi Arabia allocates the highest percentage of its national budget on health care system. The budget for the Ministry of Health runs into billions. It is a huge budget that can match the entire national budget of many countries in the world. So, what kind of reforms is needed to bring about a qualitative change in delivery of health services?
Saudi Health Minister Abdullah Al-Rabeeah is one of the most qualified and experienced physicians in the Kingdom. He has extensive education both in Saudi Arabia and the West. And he is responsible for running hundreds of hospital around the Kingdom. And some Saudi hospitals’ budgets are also in billions.
Despite all this, Saudi Arabia still faces many challenges with regard to health care system. One of them is that Saudi Arabia is a very large country with many cities and villages scattered all over and is witnessing a rapid growth in population. The Saudi capital, Riyadh, alone has more than five million people. And it is very difficult and almost impossible to build a specialized medical center in every city. So, there is a real need to make drastic reforms about the way our health care is managed.
At this stage, Saudi health care system is very dependent on expatriates who work in Saudi Arabia as we still need more Saudis and expatriates to staff the medical centers and hospitals. Having large numbers of foreign medical staff from different cultures makes it important that some of their needs are taken care of.
I am not a doctor, but it is very easy for any Saudi to note that the most challenging thing facing our health care system is the management of hospitals and medical centers. Managing a hospital is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs in the world. And only the best should be assigned to these positions. Every degree of a hospital staff should be examined very carefully. Because if the assets and budgets for hospitals are not managed properly, then the health care system will be negatively affected.
Moreover, the Ministry of Health should go for joint ventures with top medical facilities in some of the countries that have been able to manage their health care systems effectively and efficiently for long periods of time. These countries have very advanced health care management and technology, like the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.
Having joint ventures with known medical centers in the West will help the Ministry of Health access the most qualified staff and they will be in direct contacts with Saudi hospital staff, sharing their experiences with our hospital staff.
Our Saudi health care system is centralized and we can take advantage of the same standard of management in the Kingdom. We have huge budgets for our health care system and we do need joint ventures to build hospitals, equip them and run them professionally.
Saudi Arabia can at this stage enhance the capabilities of big central medical centers in Riyadh, Jeddah and the Eastern Province and have them connected to the other hospitals to follow up on patients. Apart from this, doctors from big hospitals in big cities should also be deployed, for a year or so, to smaller hospitals in small and faraway towns for improving the delivery of health services in these places.
And finally, it is very important to increase the amount of entertainment in hospitals, especially in the huge medical complexes. We don’t expect a foreign doctor or a nurse coming to work at our medical facilities away from his or her family and expect them to do their shifts and go to their living quarters for rest then do the next shift. Entertainments can be utilized with little efforts. A private movie theater for the medical staff and their families can make a difference.
And occasional get-together or a trip to another town can raise the morale of the hospital staff, especially the nurses. We all know about the hard work at the hospitals. They work long hours, day and night. Hospital staff deserves the highest form of appreciation.
— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
[email protected]
