The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has rendered the development of health care services at all levels a national priority. Yet, a number of issues still pose challenges. The shortage of Saudi health professionals, the changing patterns of disease, the poor accessibility to some health care facilities and the high demand for free services.

KSA HEALTH CARE SYSTEM BEING TRANSFORMED

To address these issues, KSA’s health care system is currently undergoing comprehensive restructuring through the implementation of a new health care model and a transformation program to boost this vital sector in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.

The initial provision of health care services in KSA can be traced back to the 1950s. In the early years, KSA was heavily reliant on a limited number of medical professionals operating within a few hospital establishments, scattered across the Kingdom. In the years that followed, KSA has invested heavily by establishing comprehensive health care infrastructures and in turn, has made huge advances.

KSA aims to provide comprehensive health care for all people in a fair and accessible manner. With this in mind, it is impressive to see how the number of doctors and nurses has multiplied as well as the number of hospitals (498 hospitals in 2019) and primary health care centers now cover every corner of the vast Kingdom.

The Health Sector Transformation Program is an integral part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 was launched in 2022. It ensures the continuous development of healthcare services in the Kingdom.

The National Transformation Program aims to upgrade the health sector and overcome the challenges currently faced. KSA’s health care services are on a mission to increase their quality and efficiency.

DISCOVER MEDICS BRING QUALITY MEDICS TO SUPPORT

In light of these future developments in the health sector in Saudi Arabia, Discover Medics will be supporting the Kingdom in its journey. They are bringing high quality international healthcare professionals from UK, Europe and other parts of the world to work in Saudi Arabia.

Discover Medics is a team of specialist Healthcare recruiters that are passionate about finding the best doctors, nurses and healthcare workers from around the world for a wide range of medical roles in the UK, Ireland, UAE and in KSA.

Founded in 2015 in North East England, they have developed a reputation for identifying the highest caliber of candidates globally and connecting them with the highest class of medical institutions. While they excel at spotting talent, they are also deeply experienced at vetting and background checks, expertly overseeing a seamless hiring process and facilitating any relocation requirements.

Himal, Managing Director of Discover Medics states “The Discover Medics’ team are driven by the desire to identify the highest quality medics and bring them to your region, whilst also offering the best jobs for candidates in the industry.”
“The Company recruits for the entire spectrum of jobs for the medical industry in the UK, Ireland, UAE and Saudi Arabia – clinics, hospitals, surgeries, dentists, allied healthcare, life science laboratories, pharmacies and more.”

The UAE is a beacon of inspiration for the future of healthcare. Ranked consistently as the best healthcare provider in the Middle East, and amongst the best in the world, this relatively young country is one of those rare examples of how private and public healthcare systems can merge seamlessly, to enable the country to not only generously deal with the medical needs of their citizens and the resident population of expats, but actively encourage medical tourism.

A focus on excellence and innovation

In 2010 the leaders of the UAE announced a remarkable plan to elevate and transform their country by 2021, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the nation. Ever forward-thinking, the focus of the aptly named UAE Vision 2021 is excellence in innovation, an acknowledgement that the world was about to make significant progress and ensuring that the UAE would be at the heart of it all.

Innovative developments in the areas of healthcare, environment, economy, education, and society ensued, and are well on their way to making the UAE one of the most progressive countries in the world. There are many spectacular examples of how this has played out, not least the development of the UAE space programme, but healthcare is chief amongst the UAE’s success stories.

Why is healthcare so successful?

The UAE has dramatically improved the quality of life for citizens and residents alike. Demographically the population of the UAE is growing and changing shape, so healthcare services will need to continuously improve in order to cater to higher standards and an older and larger number of people in the future. The World Bank projects that the UAE’s population will grow from 9.4 million people in mid-2017 to almost 11.1 million by 2030, with an average life expectancy of 79.8 years.

Health insurance cover is mandatory for all and, as you would expect, a mandatory health scheme drives demand for high standards in both private and public facilities alike. UAE nationals are covered at no cost through the “Thiqa” public system, while all employers are required to provide private health insurance to resident employees and their dependents.
Healthcare in the UAE is big business – in a recent study by MENA Research Partners, the UAE Healthcare market is project to reach AED103 billion by 2021. (Source: bcbuae.com/state-uae-healthcare)

What does the investment in healthcare look like?

Every vision needs practical steps and underlying investment. To reach its goal, the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention has focused on:

Human capital: Developing innovation and research capabilities for health providers.
Information capital: Creating a platform for sharing information and facilitating access by relevant partners.
Funding: Using resources in a systematic and sophisticated way, developing methods to facilitate the financing of health innovations.
Technology: Taking advantage of advanced technology.
Partnerships: Creating partnerships to support innovation and research.
(Source: www.mohap.gov.ae/en)

In practice, this investment ranges from the introduction of superb facilities to the recruitment of talented medics and partners from overseas.

State-of-the-art Medical facilities & Medical Cities

Spectacularly designed, first-class hospitals such as Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi are part of the initiative to provide better healthcare services and ease access to facilities. As well as building some of the finest medical centres, the UAE has opened several healthcare cities – complexes which contain a whole range of clinics of various specialties. The range and quality of facilities has helped to develop medical research to treat prevalent diseases such as diabetes and obesity, and create advanced technological systems to manage the health system.

Increasing medical talent

Integral to the UAE’s success is that it has actively sought excellent healthcare partnerships and providers in order to attract the highest quality medics in the world. World-leading institutions such as Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre has introduced a pool of talent and procedures that are world class. Talented medics are further encouraged to live and work in the UAE by the generous work/life balance, tolerant society, financial benefits and enticements such as the 10-year residence visas for doctors.

Innovation & Technology

Clearly contributing to saving lives and improving the wellbeing of patients, technological advancements include robotic surgery or strengthening the telemedicine system with virtual clinics and promoting healthy lifestyles by using smart technology for preventive purposes.

Medical Tourism

Abu Dhabi and Dubai have launched portals to allow international medical tourists to efficiently book procedures and access a wide range of tourism services including direct contact with healthcare providers, issuing visas, booking appointments, hotels, and transportation. The portals are a quality indicator of how well the healthcare system is regarded, for example, by 2020, Dubai was confidently expecting to cater to 500,000 patients from outside the country, and the UAE’s medical tourism revenues are expected to exceed $700 million. All part of a thriving industry that puts the UAE on the map.

For further information on the UAE’s inspiring vision for healthcare visit the government website https://www.vision2021.ae/en or the Ministry of Health and Prevention’s website https://www.mohap.gov.ae/en.

The impact of Covid-19 on healthcare jobs differs strikingly from country to country. Why is this? Discover Medics, a high-quality, global recruitment company, investigates. We found that factors such as the level of public versus private funding and government policy appear to be key. Another key influencer is each country’s general ‘health-status’ in terms of underlying investment and infrastructure in healthcare.

Where does this leave healthcare workers?

While regular hospital visits and surgeries plummet, the demands on hospitals due to the number of Covid-19 patients and enhanced safety measures rise. This extraordinary contradiction may leave many medics undecided about their next move. Let’s take a look at some examples of the impact on medical jobs globally.

Medical Jobs in the UK

The largest part of the health system in the UK – the National Health Service or NHS – has contributed to a positive outlook for healthcare roles in the UK. For example, while the healthcare sector has the third-largest pool of at-risk jobs in the US, the analysis of data for the UK suggests a much more modest impact on medical jobs in that sector (source: McKinsey). The NHS is more concerned about the long-term spin-off effects of Covid-19 on the general health of the nation. While staff are deployed to deal with emergency Covid patients, and hospitals react to safety measures and social distancing requirements, there are less resources available for routine procedures and checkups, meaning many serious illnesses may go undiagnosed or untreated.

The good news is that the UK Government has been quick to react, increasing public funding to healthcare. Also, the introduction of a new Health and Care Visa, launched in August 2020, will make it cheaper, quicker and easier for the best healthcare professionals from around the world to take up medical jobs in the NHS (source: www.gov.uk). The new visa promises outstanding opportunities for medics to build their expertise and enhance their careers in the health system – world-renowned for clinical excellence – while providing the UK with the brightest global medical talent.

The future of healthcare in the UAE

Long before Covid-19 made the serious shortfalls in healthcare provision so apparent elsewhere, the UAE was planning for and leading the way in the provision of excellent care. The UAE government has invested in the sector for many years as part of the ‘UAE Vision 2021’, designed to propel the country forward in terms of innovation and dramatically improve the quality of life for citizens and residents alike (see our analysis: ‘The UAE’s Inspiring Vision for Healthcare’).

The result of this wholesale investment means that the UAE had the infrastructure to get on top of the virus fast. A huge number of tests were deployed throughout the country – as of July 2020 482 tests had been conducted per 1000 population (source: ourworldindata.org) – successfully leading to the isolation and treatment of cases.

Technologically advanced, the UAE healthcare sector quickly adapted to the evolving situation, and the fast adoption of virtual appointments by the population kept the hospitals functioning at a regular pace. This rapid response also created a high level of confidence, meaning citizens were more willing to resume in-patient appointments and procedures, and the full reopening of hospitals occurred more quickly than elsewhere. Overall, a high level of government funding and a well-supported private system has worked together to counter the challenge of Covid-19 and the health sector is robustly positioned to offer high-quality medical jobs in the UAE and welcome more healthcare workers in the years to come.

The US situation

Hospital closures, reduced hours, and termination of contracts for doctors, nurses and hospital staff may seem preposterous during a pandemic. However, this is increasingly the case across the United States. Social distancing practices has led to less footfall and less in-person visits in hospitals and private practices, but the biggest factor affecting bottom lines is the reduced number of elective procedures and surgeries. While this is a combination of less demand due to safety fears or the need to prepare for COVID-19 patient loads, as a guide, surgeries have been reduced by approximately 50 percent nationwide. As the US health system is 100% privately run, the lack of a regular stream of public funding to shore up the gap is becoming increasingly apparent.

Coping with healthcare in India

The majority privately-run healthcare system in India has risen to the occasion in offering testing, preparing isolation beds for the treatment of virus-positive patients or deploying equipment and staff to special Covid-19 hospitals. Similar to the US however, whilst the private healthcare sector is fully prepared for every eventuality, it is also a reality that healthcare is facing the burden of allocating resources and equipment to ensure that hospitals are 100 percent prepared for the pandemic, while experiencing a sharp drop in footfalls, elective surgeries and international patients and the much-needed income they generate, putting healthcare jobs at risk.

Discover Medics – experienced in finding the best medics and sourcing the highest quality medical jobs in the UK, Ireland and the UAE.