Healthcare Privatisation in Saudi Arabia: Impacts and Analysis

This report examines the privatisation of healthcare in Saudi Arabia, focusing on the government's initiatives and the impact of transitioning towards a more privatised system. The analysis considers the rationale behind healthcare reform, driven by the need to manage healthcare expenditure and improve service quality. The report highlights the potential for increased healthcare costs due to profit-seeking behaviours, which could negatively affect access to care, particularly for the less privileged. It discusses the implications of privatisation on hospital infrastructure and the sustainability of healthcare services. Ultimately, the report underscores the potential negative impacts of healthcare privatisation in Saudi Arabia on the broader global healthcare landscape, emphasizing the importance of considering the consequences of such reforms.

Running head: PRIVATISATION OF HEALTH CARE: GOVERNMENT
Privatisation of Health Care: Government
Name of student:
Name of university:
Author Note:

1PRIVATISATION OF HEALTH CARE: GOVERNMENT
The government in Saudi Arabia has performed immensely to develop health care
services, providing health care facilities to the increasing population. The numerous
government agencies have developed various health service plans which have established the
high quality infrastructure; the government has provided free health care facilities to the
population in Saudi Arabia over the years and ensured that this free access of health care
facilities are availed at every corner of the Kingdom (Al-Hanawi, 2017). However, the
reduced infrastructure density coupled with strain on health care resources pave the need for
additional health care resources to address the population health care demands. Thus the
government initiatives are contributing to the health care reform in Saudi Arabia,
necessitating to promote the public health sector to invest in health care services.
There is no wholly private or public health care system to promote financial funding
for health care facilities, government in some way is always involved to provide a role of
governance to the public health responsibilities (Al-Hanawi, 2017). The increase in
technological requirements in health care treatments and high pay services for quality
performance make the health care expenditure rise too much to be paid within government
budget. Therefore the government is making efforts to encourage the private health sectors to
participate in expansion of the health care services and health care insurance.
Privatisation of health care services is intended to reduce the government health care
budget and speed up the decision making to improve the health status of the Kingdom;
however, there are significant negative effects of privatisation. There is a possibility that the
privatised hospitals would raise the health care charges due to profit seeking behaviour which
would significantly increase the health care expenditure. This would deprive the poor
population from availing free health services. This would impact the sustainability of
hospitals; the private organisations with profit-seeking intention, would invest in hospitals
with poor infrastructure thereby increasing the service charges for the user (Hazazi &

2PRIVATISATION OF HEALTH CARE: GOVERNMENT
Chandramohan, 2017). As a result, the people availing free health care would be would be
affected due to lack of health insurance. Therefore the privatisation of health care in Saudi
Arabia would have significant negative impacts on global health care scenario.

3PRIVATISATION OF HEALTH CARE: GOVERNMENT
References
Al-Hanawi, M. K. (2017). The healthcare system in Saudi Arabia: How can we best move
forward with funding to protect equitable and accessible care for all? International
Journal of Healthcare, 3(2), 78.
Hazazi, A. M., & Chandramohan, S. (2017). Privatization of Saudi health-care system and its
significant effect: A review. International Journal of Medical Science and Public
Health, 6(12), 1652-1655.