With universal healthcare being introduced in Dubai, as is the case already in Abu Dhabi, this is the right time to ensure that costs remain reined in. With the Northern Emirates likely to bring in a similar mandate, Dubai’s move to regulate the price of private healthcare is simply prudential.
As The National reported yesterday, from the start of next year private healthcare providers will be required to get approval from the Dubai Health Authority before increasing fees. A decision to approve or reject the proposed price hike will take into account the rate of inflation and also the quality of the service provided. This is, as the authority acknowledged, a balancing act in which there are competing benefits. Ensuring healthcare costs are kept reasonable has to be measured against increases in the level of bureaucracy.
But there are compelling reasons both to undertake this delicate balancing act now and to make sure it is done correctly. Healthcare costs – and thus the overall cost of living and doing business in Dubai – affect the emirate’s competitiveness.
One of the common criticisms of the way doctors and hospitals are remunerated here is that the more they do, the more they get paid. This gives them a financial incentive to order tests and provide services and procedures that might not be strictly necessary. This concern goes beyond the financial. The incentive to overprescribe something like antibiotics is a factor in the incidence of drug-resistant superbugs like MRSA.
On the other hand, there also has to be recognition that inflation in the healthcare sector will inevitably be higher than in the economy overall because enormous research and development costs are needed to produce advances in medical care.
The UAE is lucky that healthcare costs are relatively modest compared to other countries. This reflects in part the demographic skew provided by the large expatriate population, with foreign workers tending to be healthy and who leave before they reach an age when chronic health problems become commonplace.
But that cannot be a cause for complacency. Now is the right time to ensure that healthcare costs do not spiral out of control, so that those who need medical assistance in the UAE get the care they need without crippling the country’s economy.
