28/01/2023
13708 times read
28/01/2023
13708 times read
Bills abroad remain unsettled
KUWAIT CITY, Jan 28: The bill for overseas treatment of citizens has risen by 26,823 percent over 25 years and informed health sources said according to the new data that necessitate a review of treatment abroad file in light of its expenses marred by weak oversight and waste of public money, reports Al-Rai daily. The sources told the daily that “there is accumulation of documents and bills for treatment abroad for the past several financial years, without the Ministry of Health and other agencies being able to settle them, according to the reports of the Audit Bureau, due to the transfer of financial payments to health offices abroad saying there is no consistency with the available budget and as a result these bills remain unsettled, which cast a doubt on the expenses during each fiscal year.
The sources noted the efforts made during the past four years to reduce overseas treatment cases and tighten control over expenses, indicated that the expenses of health offices abroad are still not settled in a timely manner, and the balance of the account of foreign traded assets (cash payments and credits abroad) has ballooned and jumped from 4.2 million dinars in 1995 to 1,080,834,121 dinars at the end of the fiscal year 2016-2017 and 1,127,851,937 dinars at the end of the fiscal 2020-2021.
The sources indicated that the time has come to stop the waste of money on treatment abroad and legalize it, with the continued efforts of the state to improve health services and in light of new data, which prove the great capabilities of the health system in the country, and among the most prominent of these data is the upgrading of levels of health service, successfully performing complex major surgeries in the country, including heart and liver transplantation, increasing bed capacity in the Ministry’s hospitals with the opening of major projects, such as Jaber Hospital, Jahra Medical City and the new Amiri Hospital, in addition to the cumulative experience of medical staff, rehabilitation and distinguished performance, with the testimony of organizations and tangible success of the health system in dealing with a crisis the size of the “Corona” pandemic.