Proceedings of the 13th Meeting of the
COMCEC Poverty Alleviation Working Group
16
Hospital andMedical Services of Diwan of Royal Court. The private sector data includes information
on private clinics, private pharmacies and 21 private hospitals.
With the expansion of health services, there has been a growing trend in the utilization of such
services over the years. However, the year 2017 has increase in outpatient visits over last year.
Patients’ visits to outpatient clinics in Ministry of Health institutions during 2017 were about 15.8
million. Bed occupancy in MOH Institutions over the year 2017 was 69.6 %.
Ms. AL-RASHDI concluded that free primary health care is the gate keeper for all Health servicers
in Oman. It includes outpatients, investigations, medications, admissions, and procedures &
surgeries. All PHCs is well distributed in the sultanate. Patients are escorted free to secondary and
tertiary hospitals.
6.4. Qatar
Dr. Mohd ALHAJRI, Director of Department of Health Emergencies in Ministry of Public Health
presented a brief outlook about the universal health coverage in state of Qatar.
Dr. ALHAJRI began his presentation by describing Qatar’s strong economy and high GDP, which
helped the efforts to strengthen the healthcare services provision.
He pointed out that the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Qatar is of an advanced status and
provides full access to health services for everyone (Citizens and foreigners). Free emergency care
services are provided to all, even visitors, tourists.
The government is the main provider health sector and provides well-established promotional,
preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative services. It meets about 95.6% of health
expenditure (2016). A well-coordinated primary healthcare is linked to secondary and tertiary
levels with electronic system of referral and shared patient files.
Semi-governmental and private health sector provide a complementary primary and secondary
care and represent around 4.4% of health expenditure in (2016).
Dr. ALHAJRI concluded his presentation by stating that the Ministry of Public Health prepares 5
years strategic health plans to improve services and implements new evidence-based approaches
and activities. The first plan was NHS1 (2011-2016) and the current one is NHS2 (2018-2022).
6.5. Turkey
Dr. Fehmi AYDINLI, expert from General Directorate for EU and Foreign Affairs of MoH Turkey
presented the access to health services in Turkey and success achieved in the last decades.
He firstly outlined general overview of demographic conditions of Turkey. Later on, Dr. AYDINLI
mentioned about the universal health coverage approach within the scope of Health
Transformation Program which started in 2003. The multi-part social security system was
combined under one umbrella as the name Social Security Institution (SSI). Thus, 99 percent of the