MP Safaa Al-Hashem justified her proposal, which she made few days ago, to ban giving free medicine to expatriates at public clinics and hospitals by saying that the proposal is for improving health services for Kuwaiti citizens and achieve “social justice”.

Earlier she proposed that the KD 1 and KD 2 paid by expatriate patients at clinics and hospitals respectively should be considered as examination fees to allow them to be seen by doctors. She said expat patients should then purchase the prescribed drugs from private drug stores.

MP clarified that her proposal aims at organizing the medical sector and allowing Kuwaiti patients easy access to the government-run health sector. She also said that all the five Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states are implementing such thing and in those countries, expatriates are barred from public health services.

She also claimed that expatriate doctors prescribe large quantities of medicine to expatriate patients and this leads to squandering of public funds.