Healthcare sector in Saudi Arabia in the regional ranking

Dr. Mahmoud A. Al Yamany, CEO of King Fahad Medical City talks about Saudi healthcare.

What do you think about the healthcare sector in Saudi Arabia in the regional context? Does it have the best healthcare system in the Middle East?

Saudi tertiary healthcare is at a very good level. We work on treating cancer but we don’t work on preventing cancer in the first place. There is a huge gap when we talk about primary and secondary care in Saudi Arabia compared to the Western world.

In the region, you cannot compare large economies such as Saudi Arabia to smaller states such as the UAE. It is very easy to establish an excellent system in a small state; you can use the UAE as an example where every Emirate has its own independent system. Abu Dhabi now seems to lead the region but it is easier to service 700,000 people than 30 million.

I think that as tertiary care providers, Saudi Arabia offers the best healthcare in the Middle East. The kingdom benchmarks itself against the United States & Western Europe. Again, we have a huge gap with secondary care; a patient with cancer can easily find where to go for treatment whilst a patient with an appendix problem will sadly fall-through-the-cracks.