Qatar Among Top Healthcare Spenders With US$ 3.287 Billion: Report

Doha, July 30 (QNA) - Qatar spent up to QR12 Billion (US$ 3.287 Billion) on health in 2011, registering a 27% increase from 2010, becoming one of the top spenders on healthcare in the world, the newly-released National Health Accounts (NHA) report reveals. Qatar had spent over QR9.5Bn (US$ 6.2Bn) on healthcare in 2010. The report shows a noticeable increase in the per capita health expenditure between 2010-2011 from $1,561 to $1,920, which puts Qatar at the top of the 22 Middle East countries, according to a Gulf Times report today. The trend of current and capital health expenditure by financing sources recorded in the country between 2009 to 2011 revealed that government had funded some 77% of healthcare in 2011: the figures for 2010 and 2009 were 75% and 76% respectively. The Supreme Council of Health's Assistant Secretary General for policy affairs, Dr Faleh Mohamed Ali, said the NHA would help policy makers in drawing up key objectives. Dr Ali said the SCH assumed managing a major part of the public sector's share amounting to 94% while the other governmental bodies attended to the remaining 6%. He explained that the distribution of expenditure among the providers of the healthcare services were: hospitals (57%), outpatient clinics (14%), healthcare management and financing system (8%) and other service providers (21%). He also pointed out that the new classification distributed QR12bn - 82% - as current expenditure and 18% as capital expenditure. "As for services rendered against the current expenditure, some 40% has gone into healthcare services of in-patient, long stay and rehabilitation patients, while 30% was for outpatient and day care services, and 10% for ancillary services. As for the capital expenditure amounting to QR2.122bn, 74% was allocated for infrastructure and 26 % for equipment," he said. "This latest report has given some important results. The first of them being that Qatar's increase in healthcare expenditure has been one of the highest in the world, especially when considering the austerity measures adopted by most countries. The second is that the Qatari government has been the main financier of the healthcare services reflecting its commitment to improve these services," he said. He also said that despite the decrease in the direct expenditure of households on healthcare from 16% to 13.8% between 2010 and 2011, the overall value increased from QR1.550bn to QR1.665bn. He expected the trend to continue until the full application of the social healthcare insurance system by end of 2014. (QNA)