THE healthcare service issue has not been treated seriously for years, especially in terms of the quality of services and the balance between demand and supply. The problem continues to exist despite the billions of riyals the government allocates to the Ministry of Health's budget, one of the largest compared to other sectors' budgets. Senior leaders and undersecretaries of the ministry have been changed several times but this change has not brought about any positive role in dealing with this issue drastically. Today, the problem has exasperated due to the obstacles that faced and still faces the ministry such as financial credits, faltering projects, and shortage of highly-qualified Saudi staff. The previous ministers and senior officials exerted a lot of efforts to find highly-qualified Saudi staff to fill medical and technical positions. I think the problem lies in the fact that the ministry has inherited these problems and obstacles over the past years. As a result, it has failed to deal with them. I do not think we should blame the senior officials as much as we should look at the problems and obstacles inherited from previous managements. Any new management comes on board will not have a magic wand to solve the current problems. Equally, I do not believe that the privatization of the health sector is the solution. We should not hasten and make any decision in this regard without first conducting a study and look at the experience of privatizing the operation and management sector of hospitals few decades ago. Each citizen has the right to get free medical services. Besides, privatizing government hospitals is not a new idea; it was implemented in the past without any success. In fact, the level of service deteriorated because the operating companies preferred to contract low-salary doctors, nurses, and technicians. If we privatize the free government services, the damage will be greater because a portion of the cost will be added to the service cost. In this case, the healthcare service companies will raise prices and health insurance companies will follow suit. The idea will not be successful at all. The government should continue to offer free medical services to all citizens as is the case in the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and other European countries. Providing health insurance to all citizens is a good idea but it will not solve the main problem: making healthcare services readily available to all. There is a 50 percent deficit of the volume of demand on medical services, whether in terms of the number of beds or doctors in certain regions. I call upon the ministry to encourage the formation of joint-stock health companies to build gigantic health institutions and facilities all over the Kingdom. The shortage of highly-qualified staff is another obstacle that needs to be surmounted. The number of Saudis studying a medical specialty is very limited. We should increase the capacity of our medical colleges to take on more students and we should send a large number of students abroad to study various medical sciences. The shortage of beds in ICUs is another obstacle that needs a drastic solution.
