New Egyptian health insurance system in October

In the framework of the ministerial meetings he holds for following up the implementation of his electoral platform, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak yesterday asked for drawing up a new health insurance system next September or October.

The president asserted at the meeting which was held at the presidential palace in Heliopolis and attended by seven ministers that an effective health insurance system should be introduced, adding that this new system should be based on enhancing health insurance services provided for citizens, and that the rich should shoulder a fair share in financing this system.

Under the new system, Mubarak said, the state would afford what the limited income brackets can not in such financing, stressing the importance of reaching an insurance policy that provides advanced health service adding that this system should separate between management and financing from the service provided.

The new system, Mubarak said, should provide citizens the chance to enjoy health care at the department they select, adding that this would unleash competition among the private, government and military hospitals.

During the meeting, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the Minister of Defense said the Armed Forces possess 66 military hospitals, 28 specialized centers which offer their services to the civilians.

Presidential spokesman Ambassador Soliman Awwad said that mortality rates, especially among children, have decreased and average longevity rates among males and females have increased according to the UN annual report on human development and World Health Organization statistics.

He said that according to WHO, the rate of infection of endemic diseases in Egypt has largely dropped in the past years. In belharzia for instance, the rate went down from 49 percent in the 80s to only 1.9 percent last year. The same also goes for TS and polio with the latter almost disappearing from Egypt, he said.

He said that according to international figures, Egypt now suffers the same kind of diseases prevalent in the advanced countries such as those related to heart, diabetes, tumors, kidney failure and liver.

Awwad said at present only 52 percent of the population in Egypt, 35 million people, are covered by healthcare and health insurance programs. But, under President Mubarak's electoral program all Egyptians would receive full healthcare and health insurance coverage by 2010, he said.

According to him, the gap in offering health services in rural and urban areas would be narrowed.

He said that the quality of medical and nursing services really needed to be improved and the health insurance system to be entirely revamped.

Egypt can be guided in doing so by following successful examples in the advanced countries, he said.

He said that the President asked about the health service offered to the ordinary citizen in rural areas, and in Upper Egypt in particular, and discussed with the Health Minister the flaws and shortage in health program, the required investments in the health sector and incentives to doctors working in underdeveloped areas.

The Presidential spokesman said that the Health Minister told the President that the overhauling of the country's health programs would take time and expounded to his two-track plan for introducing short-term and long-term reforms to the country's health policy.

According to him, the short-term part of the plan addresses existing problems and provides rapid remedies for them to offer the ordinary citizen immediate relief whereas its long-term part entails comprehensive reforms in the country's healthcare and health insurance programs.

Awwad said the President asserted the need to forge a more effective health insurance system that could offer the Egyptian citizen the chance to receive high-quality healthcare at any place of his choice.

The President asked about the final date for the government's offering of a complete plan for the development of the health sector and the Health Minister promised that the plan would be ready in September or October at the latest, the spokesman said.

He also said that the meeting addressed the topic of rising medicine prices, reiterating the President's commitment to guaranteeing the interests of low-income Egyptians.