In a startling revelation, filthy conditions in an NHS hospital led to the death of at least seventy patients, without reason. Nursing care at Basildon University Hospital was labelled “appalling” by the Healthcare Commission, which said this hospital had a mortality rate of more than a third of the national average.
Angry patients branded the care facilities at this Essex hospital as ‘third world’ and cursed Labour’s failure to exercise healthy reforms that improve healthcare system, despite escalating taxpayer funding over the last decade.
This brings us to dwell upon the healthcare practices and ‘hospital health’ prevailing in GCC countries. How well do they fare in comparison to the evolved markets of the West? The answer seems optimistic.
Recent reports have shown that GCC countries are on the trail to establish high standard hospitals that adhere to care standards practiced by reputed institutions globally. Recently, the committee at the fourth annual meeting of GCC Centre for Infection Control (IC) and Training Course held in Doha, Qatar, came to an agreement that international standards and regulations on infection control should be closely followed to check the spread of infections. According to Dr Mamoun Al Sheikh, Assistant Executive Director of the Infection Control Programme at HMC and the chairman of the conference, “Infection Control is concerned mainly in controlling infection from within the hospital to the community.”
Extra emphasis is also being laid on the number of trained and qualified healthcare professionals available in these countries, capable of providing quality care. According to a report published by a Bahrain-based private equity firm: Meeting the GCC Healthcare Challenge 2050 – the Gulf will require more than 140,000 extra doctors and 227,000 extra nurses by 2050, just to maintain current levels of service. In response to such reports, governments of this region are providing large sums and opening up channels for private sector players to participate.
With an increase in ageing population and onset of chronic lifestyle diseases in the Middle East, total healthcare spending in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is predicted to reach $60 billion annually by 2025 – a fivefold increase over current spending. “With the fivefold increase in regional healthcare spending, the priority is not only to temper the costs but also to provide access to safe, quality care,” said Omar Moawiyah Al Shunnar, Executive Director of the Emaar Healthcare Group.
People residing in this region are developing diseases that were earlier confined only to the western world. It is therefore imperative for the GCC countries to develop an integrated healthcare model, that amalgamates primary and secondary care, along with other healthcare players, to enhance quality of life and reduce the expenditure of each patient, and not just simply replicate healthcare systems set up in the west.
Currently, government run hospitals lack managerial skills needed to run healthcare facilities and thereby fail to attract specialists to treat surging numbers of patients with lifestyle diseases such as chronic diabetes, heart disease and cancer, just based on cash incentives. This gap has been recognised and governments are now collaborating with international universities, like Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, to enhance skills of nationals to meet the demands of running world-class hospitals.
These dynamic changes being brought about by GCC countries, especially the UAE and Qatar, through their very ambitious plans for reforming their healthcare sector leaves us with a positive conclusion that there would be a significant improvement in quality of healthcare and healthcare facilities and heightened competitiveness on a global scale.
Article by Snigdha Taduri for Biomed- Middle East