Ashraf Sadek: Cairo, July 05, 2018 - President Abdel Fattah El Sisi Thursday called on the government to expedite development of the national healthcare system and improve its services, stressing the importance of upgrading the human and material resources of the health sector. The president was speaking at a meeting with Prime Minister Dr Moustafa Madbouli and Health Minister Dr Hala Zayed, the Presidency Spokesman, Ambassador Bassam Radi, said. The meeting was called by President Sisi to review the latest developments in a plan for upgrading the healthcare and health insurance system, Spokesman Radi said. The prime minister and Dr Zayed reviewed with President Sisi the progress of work on the new national health insurance system. The government had already taken the financial and legislative steps for establishing the country's first comprehensive health insurance system. Its implementation will start in Port Said governorate. The new mandatory system, which covers all citizens, will be later applied in the Suez, Ismailia, Northern Sinai and Southern Sinai governorates. To ensure the success of the system, Health Minister Zayed explained that the ministry had started improving the country's hospitals and health facilities. "The improvements include the provision of advanced medical equipment, a modern infrastructure and training programmes for the doctors and nursing staffs in these facilities," Dr Zayed said. According to the available documents, the new health insurance system, which has been designed to cover all members of the family of each of the insured citizen, would be formed of three main bodies. One would be for comprehensive health and social insurance services. Another would be the medical service component of the heathcare system. The third would cover accreditation and monitoring as well as the drawing up of quality standards to be applicable in all healthcare facilities. The state will bear the cost of extending insurance to citizens considered incapable of joining the system and to the neediest segments of the public. President Sisi directed Prime Minister Madbouli and Minister Zayed to add 18 teaching hospitals to the healthcare facilities, where the system would be applied in various governorates. Such a move would help the patients receive the medical treatment without having to leave their governorates or to go to a hospital in another governorate, President Sisi said. President Sisi also directed Madbouli and Zayed to improve the working conditions for the staff in all government-run healthcare facilities in co-operation with local councils and non-government organisations (NGOs). During the meeting, Zayed reviewed with President Sisi the ministry's plan for improving the overall preventive and curative medical services. The plan, she said, is designed for developing 29 ministry-run hospitals in the governorates and providing them with advanced equipment and highly-trained medical personnel. These hospitals, Dr Zayed said, would provide a variety of high quality preventive and curative medical services. Their outpatient and in-patient clinics would offer cardiology, marrow-transplant, Nephrology, liver, neuroses, and surgical services to the patients, she said. Dr Zayed also said that the ministry's plan of action included improving the maternity care, family planning and child spacing services that were being offered to women nationwide in order to reduce the population growth.
