Health Ministry team in Oman to develop new alternatives for financing healthcare

Muscat: Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Saidi, minister of health has issued a decision to establish a team for developing a proposal that shows the best financial options and alternatives for supporting and covering the provision of health care services and also means and ways of increasing the financial resources of the Ministry of Health.
The Ministry of Health had adopted an investment approach, rather than the traditional approach for health financing. In this regard, it had established a new directorate within the organizational structure of the Ministry for Health’s investment and financial alternatives that dealt with setting policies and future strategies and seeking better sustainable options and alternatives to financing health care, as well as advocating and attracting more investment in priority health projects and fostering a public-private partnership and collaboration with the concerned governmental bodies.
In addition, the new directorate will conduct relevant studies that concern the “Waqf for Health (health endowment)” and how to develop it further, establish the general directives for financial policies that will improve efficiency, ensure value for money and improve returns and outcomes.
It is worth mentioning that this milestone is a result of the Health Vision 2050, which stated clearly the need to establish a body that deals with attracting more durable and innovative investments for health that can sustain universal coverage with quality health care.
Through these endeavours, the Ministry of Health is looking forward for the best sustainable approaches for investing more in health, better withstanding the global financial changes and reducing the burden exerted on the government budget. This may lead in the future to self-financing of health projects.
The Ministry of Health is also encouraging the private sector to invest more in health projects through a partnership with the public sector. This will lead to increasing spending in health, as well as tackling collectively all future health challenges.