KUWAIT: Health ministry assistant undersecretary for legal affairs Dr Mahmoud Al-Abdelhadi said a study has been conducted to review some health service fees to make them conform to their actual cost and which are affordable by expats, Al-Anbaa daily reported yesterday. Abdelhadi said the health ministry’s undersecretaries’ council discussed the health service fees and means of collecting them, closing all loopholes to safeguard public funds and upgrading means of collection.

Sources at the health ministry said the ministry is about to issue a decision to increase health service fees for expats, which will go into effect soon. The sources said the increase is inevitable, but will not be more than the charges collected in the private sector, and could be 20 percent lower.

Sources said the committee studying the increase in fees had completed its work and submitted its report to former health minister Dr Ali Al-Obaidi, but it was deferred.

Sources said the new health service fees will be imposed in the very near future because it is difficult to keep government health service fees as they are, as they are not compatible with the true cost of the services provided, and especially since the current fees being collected from expats are far lower than those in the private sector. Sources said some treatment will be for free, including emergency and accident cases. Nuclear medicine will be 50 percent cheaper because it is not available in the private sector.