Hospital builds in Saudi abandoned due to lack of funds

ON HOLD: Private healthcare developments in Saudi have ground to a halt in the wake of the global economic crisis. (Getty images)

Plans to build new hospitals and extend existing ones in Saudi have been abandoned or put on hold as a result of the global crisis, it emerged on Wednesday.

Owners had been forced to give up on new projects due to lack of investments across the country despite the need for thousands of more beds, healthcare officials told Arabic daily Al Hayat.

Dr Muhammed Mutabqani, chairman of the National Health Committee (NHC) at the Saudi Council of Chambers of Commerce said the cash was no longer there to carry out with the schemes due to the global crisis.

“The private health sector is part of the international and local economy, and, therefore, the crisis has forced owners of hospitals and investors in the field to give up their plans for carrying out expansion work and dissuaded them from investing in new hospitals in various parts of the Kingdom,” he said.

“Doubtless, the crisis will hamper the expansion of Saudi health projects. I regret this because we need at least 5,000 more beds,” added Dr Saleh Ghnbaz, deputy chairman of the board of directors of the Central Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.

Financing healthcare projects required hefty sums for construction, and on-going running costs such as electricity and water were an added issue, Mutabqani explained.  

The NHC had approached a number of government department to try and help healthcare firms secure increased access loans to aid investment, which even included an appeal to King Abdullh, he revealed he revealed.

It had asked the ministry to increase loans allocated to healthcare investors from SR50m to SR200m, he added.

“We pleaded with him to treat investors in the health field in the same way that the owners of factories are treated. The King also directed the former Minister of Health to look into the loan issue, but the ministry’s response was below our expectations,” Mutabqani added.

The NHC had since sent a report outlining the stalling of healthcare projects due to a lack of finance to the finance ministry and was waiting a response, he said

“We sent an integrated working paper to the Ministry of Finance on the loans the sector needs and the problems that it is facing, but so far we have not received a response.”

Instead of large expensive hospital projects healthcare organisations were focusing on community-led helath schemes, added Ghnbaz.
 
“For the time being we are focusing on primary health care for specialist medical services which require very large investments,” he said.

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