Health Minister Dr Jamal Al-Harbi denied plans to further raise fees for medical services provided to expats and stressed that the recent fee hikes were made to provide better healthcare and develop work in various medical departments.
He also added that the decision to increase expats’ annual health insurance to KD 130 is still being studied.
Harbi stressed that he has instructed hospital managers to exempt expats with urgent cases, heart disease and ICU patients from the new fees, and strongly denied that an Egyptian died last week after Amiri Hospital refused operating on him unless he paid in advance for an urgent heart surgery.
He said he called the hospital manager Dr Ali AlAlandah, who said the patient only needed a bypass surgery costing KD 90.