The Minister of Health, Dr. Ahmed Al-Awadi, issued a decision to regulate medical advertisements that are advertised on the billboards and social media platforms in Kuwait. Many advertisements by the private sectors were disapproved for violating public taste and professional ethics and some of them even contained inappropriate images and phrases.
The decision, which bore the number 87/2023, included caveats and controls that must be considered by medical advertisers so as not to fall under professional and legal accountability. Based on numerous observations from advertisements by clinics, medical centers and hospitals in the private medical sector, the Minister of Health, Dr. Ahmed Al-Awadi, issued this decision consisting of 27 articles, according to which he established controls and regulations regulating the process of medical advertisements in the private sector.
The decision stated that it is not permissible to advertise the prices of health services outside the walls of the medical facility by any means of advertising. The decision also states that it is not permissible to advertise medicines, medical preparations, mixtures, formulas, stimulants, special foods, devices, machines, or equipment related to health aspects, by commenting on the facility or any other advertising means, including the means of communication, before obtaining a license from the Ministry, in accordance with the provisions of the executive regulations of the current decision.
It also stipulated that the Health Licensing Department is empowered to cancel licenses for advertisements that violate Law 70/2020 and other similar laws and stressed that it is not permissible to advertise discounts, free services, installment payments, or any other payment facilities, except within the health facility building.
The decision further noted that the advertiser is prohibited from challenging colleagues in the profession or underestimating the level of their health skills in advertisements, whether directly or indirectly, and is also prohibited from conducting a survey or presenting offers or services inside the medical facility, except after obtaining prior written approval.
The new regulations further state that advertisers need to also give utmost care in preserving the patient’s privacy, not violating public taste and professional ethics in advertising, and showing the minimum level of the patient’s body in a way that does not offend modesty and does not contradict public taste, as well as the need to obtain written consent from the patients before publishing any clip of theirs by filming the practitioner of the patient.
The provisions of the decision apply to advertisements on social media, whether they are approved accounts for medical facilities, accounts designated for commercial advertisements, accounts of influencers on communication platforms, personal accounts of practitioners and other accounts.
Health sources confirmed that “hundreds of accounts affiliated with clinics, doctors, and health facilities in the private medical sector on social networking sites have deleted advertisements that violate the decision of the Minister of Health, Dr. Ahmed Al-Awadi, with the aim of not being subjected to penalties as a result of these violations.
The sources added that the Minister of Health “made the decision with the aim of organizing the chaos of medical advertisements and setting controls for them in the private sector, especially after monitoring a series of abuses that were contrary to laws and public taste.
