The government’s decision to increase the charges on medical services offered to expatriates in public hospitals and the implementation of a health insurance scheme for foreigners has resulted in a huge income for the Ministry of Health.
Latest reports show that in the first six months of 2019, the ministry collected KD25.2 million in health insurance charges from expatriates. This follows a record collection of KD109.2 million for health insurance in 2018. The fees were collected by relevant health insurance companies until the end of July 2019, when their contract expired. Since then, the ministry has implemented an online scheme to receive health insurance payments from expatriates.
Head of Kuwait Medical Society Dr. Ahmad Al-Enezi said the ministry, due to the high cost of medical care, increased the fees in order to preserve the public funds from being spent unnecessarily on medical procedures for foreigners.
However, he pointed out that, the collection of health insurance fees revealed several shortcomings in the scheme, including the fact that expatriates still had to pay from their pocket for services at public hospitals.
Meanwhile, Head of Kuwait Dental Association Dr. Muhammad Dashti said the increased fees forced on expatriates should have been accompanied by improved medical services provided to them. He affirmed that the decision to increase the medical fees is not bad, as it reduced the number of people who pretend to be suffering from diseases and the number of people who come to Kuwait just for surgeries which are more expensive in their countries. He revealed that a large number of expatriates opt for private clinics to receive medical services since the costs are almost similar to that of public hospitals.
