A national committee has launched a comprehensive health insurance project as it seeks to provide healthcare for citizens who do not have health insurance - with their numbers estimated at about 30% of the Jordanian population.
Official estimates show that nearly 2m citizens do not have national health insurance, according to a report by AmmanNet.
While a free social health insurance scheme for children and the elderly was introduced in 2011 after the Jordan Constitution was amended, it did not stipulate the right of all citizens to such treatment.
The coordinator of the national committee that prepared the draft for the comprehensive health insurance project, Mr Azzam Al-Samadi said in an interview with AmmanNet, that the most important concern for any citizen is obtaining healthcare at an appropriate cost.
Mr Al-Samadi, who is also the president of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, said that the project aims to strengthen preventive and curative primary healthcare and expand the role of primary health centres to relieve pressure on hospitals in Jordan. It will also revamp the school healthcare system, which caters to about 2.5m children in the kingdom.
Last March, the Ministry of Health launched its 2023–2025 national strategy based on creating an integrated health system that enhances the health of individuals and society and provides preventive, curative, rehabilitative, and safe health services with fairness, quality and efficiency.
Problems in the healthcare sector
The Ministry of Health faces several challenges, the most prominent of which is the lack of formal studies showing the extent of the problems facing the healthcare sector. These studies may exist but are not publicised.
The kingdom also lacks an institution specialised in studying the health sector fully, which hinders the development of a real strategy for the development of this sector, according to Mr Al-Samadi. M