Critical 5 (500)

Saudi Arabia

Turkey

· First health department established in Mecca 1925

· It was responsible for free healthcare but the national income was not enough to achieve major advances

· Most people thus still relied on traditional medicines and doctors and hence epidemics remained high

· Ministry of health was established in 1950 and 20 years later 5-year development plan was set in motion.

· As it stands the ministry is the major government provider and financer and boasts of 244 hospitals and 2037 primary health care facilities.

· In the early 1920’s the young Republic did not have structure for delivery or training of health personnel for health services.

· Expansion began with establishment with vertical programmes to control; tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases this was coupled with establishment of educational programmes to train personnel.

· In 1945 Social Insurance Organization was established to provide health, retirement and disability benefits.

· In 1961 “Basic Health Law” was established which was meant to increase subsidies on health services.

· All were aimed at expanding health care services and making them easily and equally accessible.

· The health system mostly emphasised on curative care model to begin with which proved very costly for the health care providers and there was therefore needed to bring out a preventive strategy which was implemented by the ministry of health and included; educating the population on preventive and control measures of prevailing diseases, immunization of children, comprehensive maternal and child health care, proper sanitation among others.

· Basic health care is mainly done by the midwifes who occupy the health posts.

· Health centres have a higher mandate with staffing made up of physician and highly qualified personnel.

· Main concern being prevention and treatment of communicable diseases, immunization, maternal and child care, family planning, public health education, diagnosis and treatment of cases subject to primary level of care among others.

· Funding allows for increase in health facilities this making health care more accessible to the population. From 2004 to 2009 the increase in funding has improved budget allocations from the ministry of health from 16 million to 30 million this has translated in increase in health centres from 1848 to 2037.

· Funding in turkey will allow for the 1961 established “Basic Health Law” to reach new heights by reducing cost of health care through set systems such as;

· Social Insurance Organization

· The Social Insurance Agency of Merchants, Artisans and self- Employed Government Employees

· Employees retirement fund

· Private Health insurers

· Public health centres supply primary care, more advanced care in terms of preventive and curative is referred to the public hospitals (secondary level of care) while cases that are more complex are referred to central or specialized hospitals (tertiary level of care)

· The ministry invests more in secondary and tertiary level of care, with many hospitals provided by Ministry of Health, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Labour, Social Security, some state Economic enterprises, Universities and private Sector. Primary care is not invested in as much and thus proper care is better provided to the insured population and thus the rich.

· Saudi Arabia ministry of health has initiated further projects aimed at developing health care e.g.

· Increasing advanced public healthcare system

· Increasing workforce

· Improving health services quality of preventive, curative, rehabilitation and fair distribution.

· E-health and electronic information is being taken up in public institution with a 4-year development plan in place.

· The future of Turkish health care services is aimed at improving equity of the system.

· Reforms are being set in place to remove geographical and financial difficulty that faces the poor and/or those in rural areas who do not have insurance to allow them to gain quality healthcare