Saudi Arabia Healthcare Report Review: Analysis of Challenges

This report reviews Saudi Arabia's Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q2-2017, highlighting the critical shortage of qualified healthcare professionals and infrastructure needs. The report emphasizes the necessity for at least ten thousand qualified professionals by 2020 and an additional thirty thousand by 2030, along with a significant increase in hospital beds. It discusses the Ministry of Health's initiatives, 'E-Health' and 'New Model of Care', as part of the 'National Transformation Program 2030', aimed at enhancing healthcare efficiency through digital transformation and providing holistic care. The review suggests both short-term solutions, such as hiring professionals from other countries, and long-term strategies, like developing domestic training infrastructure, to address the qualified professional's need effectively. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students' academic needs.

Running head: SAUDI ARABIA HEALTHCARE REPORT REVIEW
SAUDI ARABIA HEALTHCARE REPORT REVIEW
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Saudi Arabia’s Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report Q2 – 2017 has identified lack
of qualified professionals to meet the demand of country’s future need as a major weakness
regarding Saudi Arabia’s healthcare system. The report has painted a worrying picture
regarding this issue in case of healthcare system of Saudi Arabia (Alhawassi et al. 2018). It
has been reported that Saudi Arabia needs at least ten thousand qualified professionals within
the year 2020 to meet the country’s healthcare need. Another thirty thousand qualified
professionals is required by the year 2030 in addition to the previous ten thousand. Saudi
Arabia’s healthcare system does not only require qualified professionals, it also needs major
overhauls in case of infrastructure (Alhawassi et al. 2018). Oxford economics consultancy
firm has estimated that the Saudi Arabia’s healthcare system will need around seven thousand
and eight hundred beds in their hospital by the year 2020. Additional thirty two thousand bed
will be required in top of the seven thousand and eight hundred beds by the year 2030
(Alhawassi et al. 2018). From the report, it is evident that the Saudi Arabia’s healthcare
system needs some major overhaul and it also requires Ministry of Health action and
initiatives.
Fortunately, the Ministry of Health took some initiative to handle the issues it is
facing regarding the healthcare system. Name of the two initiative taken by the Ministry of
Health are ‘E- Health’ and ‘New Model of Care’ (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 2017). These
initiatives are the part of the Saudi Arabia’s ‘National Transformation Program 2030’ and
one of the objective of this program is to rejuvenate and transform Saudi Arabia’s Healthcare.
The aim and objective of the initiative ‘E- Health’ is to enhance the efficiency of healthcare
sector using digital transformation, information technology, and state of art technology. It is
also aims to ease the health care access for the citizens of Saudi Arabia with services like
tele- medicine and tele- consultations. The aim and objective of the initiative ‘New Model of
Care’ is to introduce a newer approach to the health care system which will goes beyond just

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the treatment of disease and will aim to provide a holistic care. This initiative will aim to the
prevention of diseases as well. The proposed structure of this initiative is to integrate the
services of health care professionals with society, individual, and institutions to provide the
best possible practices to its citizens (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2017).
The purpose of these initiatives taken by the Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Government
is to negate the need of the qualified professionals as much as possible and even to bypass it
if possible. However, physical need for the qualified professionals will always be present in
health care sector despite the advancement of technology. Saudi Arabia’s government can
handle this two ways: Short term arrangement and long term arrangement. Short term
arrangement will be to hire qualified professionals from other country to meet the immediate
necessity. However, a country cannot always depend on the other countries and it has be self-
sustained to have a successful healthcare system. Long-term arrangement will be to create
infrastructure to produce qualified professionals of their own and both the long-term and
short-term arrangement will be required to successfully address the need of qualified
professionals.

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References:
Alhawassi, T.M., Abuelizz, H.A., Almetwazi, M., Mahmoud, M.A., Alghamdi, A., Alruthia,
Y.S., BinDhim, N., Alburikan, K.A., Asiri, Y.A. and Pitts, P.J., 2018. Advancing
pharmaceuticals and patient safety in Saudi Arabia: A 2030 vision initiative. Saudi
Pharmaceutical Journal, 26(1), pp.71-74.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 2017. National Transformation Program. Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, pp.12-17.