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29 March 2024

Saudi public health worsens despite high budget

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By Staff

Public health conditions in Saudi Arabia have worsened over the past years despite massive budgetary allocations by the government to health services, the Gulf Kingdom’s largest bank said on Tuesday.

National Commercial Bank (NCB) attributed the deterioration to a steady increase in the population, high per capita income and changing lifestyles.

By the end of 2008, Saudi Arabia had nearly 393 hospitals, 1,986 primary healthcare centers, and around 1,160 private sector dispensaries.

Overall in 2008, inpatient admissions and outpatient visits totaled about 3.1 million and 126 million respectively, the study showed.

“With a rapid pace of urbanization, changing lifestyles, economic growth and rising per capita income, people’s utilization of healthcare services expanded over the last decade, due to increasing road accidents and other incidents of sickness, NCB said in the study sent to Emirates 24/7.

It showed hospital admission rate increased from 10.5 per cent in 2000 to 12.1 per cent in 2008, with average length of stay at 6.2 days.

“This suggests a rising burden on public health services, and a deteriorating national health profile or inefficient use of medical facilities, particularly at the Ministry of Health locations, with inpatients’ average stay lasting seven days, commanding the lengthiest time,” the study said.

Outpatient referrals surged to nearly five times the population, reaching around126 million referrals in 2008, it said.

“Each individual, therefore, visited any outpatient center a total of five times per year, suggesting an outbreak of seasonal viruses. Over 10 years, visits per physician grew by 20 per cent to reach 3,729 visits by end of 2008, indicating, on average, that each physician provides services to at least 11 outpatients in addition to paying visits to inpatients during the day,” NCB said.

“This data shows a lack of improvement in the morbidity rate despite huge budgetary allocations for the public health sector.”

Health services are among the biggest recipient of funds in Saudi Arabia’s budgets, accounting for more than 10 per cent of total spending in most years.

In 2010, allocations for the health sector stood at around SR 61.2, covering new projects such as the construction of 92 new hospitals and primary care centers.

The allocations accounted for nearly 11.2 per cent of the total budgeted expenditure of SR540 billion during that year, official data showed.