The changing face of healthcare in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Many countries now struggle to provide cost-effective, quality healthcare services to their citizens. Saudi Arabia has experienced high costs along with concerns about quality of care in its public facilities. To address these issues the country is currently restructuring their healthcare system to privatize public hospitals and introduce insurance coverage for both foreign workers and citizens. The changes provide an interesting and insightful case for the challenges in radically changing a country’s healthcare system. The situation also demonstrates a unique case in the Middle East for greater reliance of the private sector to address rapidly escalating healthcare costs and deteriorating quality. The complexity of changing a healthcare system is discussed with the many challenges associated with the change.

The relationship of participation in shared governance to work satisfaction among cardiovascular nurses working in a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia

“…[18] Nursing turnover in KSA is considered a significant challenge that had impacted the efficiency of the health care system. [19] The average nursing turnover rate in the hospital where this study took place was 12.5% during 2011 and 14% in 2010. According to the hospital reports, personal and work-related factors were the main reasons for nurses' intention to leave the job.…”

Privatization of Saudi health-care system and its significant effect: A review

“…The private organizations are more likely to concentrate on the bigger cities and larger communities, and as a result of it, the rural population will be affected, and the good quality health-care services will be not adequately available nor easily accessible to them. [13] It is more likely that when the public hospitals in Saudi Arabia are privatized it may become a for-profit organization, and they will have to provide incentives to shift non-reimbursable cost back to the public hospitals. The severity of this problem will be also based on the structure of the policies taken by the patients.…”

“…[13] Another important issue of privatization of health care is the sustainability of the hospitals for example if the hospital is functioning in an old building which is serving a large number of patients but has got poor infrastructures, and it would require a larger investment to upgrade it. In that case, only fewer or sometimes no private groups will be interested in these hospitals because of profit-seeking behavior.…”

“…[3] In general, citizens can only access the primary health-care centers in their areas of residence. [4] Increase in the health-care cost and scarcity of resources made the health-care system across the globe to shift from the conventional public funding to the privatization of health care. [5][6][7][8] The term privatization is defined as decreased levels of public provision, subsidy, or regulation of either preventive or curative health services.…”

Quality of life in tertiary healthcare services: lessons from the Saudi Arabia accreditation system

“…The prevalence of hospital accreditation through hospital quality standards has been increasing (Walston et al, 2008). The competitive pressure in the SA health care system threatens to force individuals further away from their communities than necessary because the gatekeeping standards for access to tertiary institutions are too daunting.…”