 Understanding the private health sector in the occupied Palestinian territoryMohammad Abu-Zaineh ()
Working Papers from HAL Abstract: This study aims to contribute to policy formulation and planning for universal health coverage (UHC) in the occupied Palestinian territory. Its primary purpose is to assess the involvement of the private sector in health care (both for-profit and not-for-profit) and its engagement in current efforts to attain UHC. This is done through a systematic examination of the health status of the Palestinian population and the development of the health system over the past two decades. This has been done by compiling all relevant data and information, as well as the views and perspectives of key stakeholders. Several interesting findings and key implications are worth highlighting. First, there is a consensus in favour of UHC among all health sector stakeholders. Importantly, all stakeholders agreed that achievement of UHC can only be made possible through effective collaboration between the four major health care providers in the occupied Palestinian territory, namely: the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Military Medical Services Agency; nongovernmental organizations; the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA); and the private for profit health sector. While this reflects the widespread political support and social acceptability of UHC, the readiness of the current health system for achieving UHC appears to be inadequate. Secondly, while mobilizing additional resources is certainly required, most stakeholders emphasized that financial resources alone will not be enough to close the provision gaps – which are expected to rise significantly given the expansion of coverage and the demographic and epidemiological transition. The overall health system has to be organized in a way that can ensure the effective participation of all stakeholders in the design and implementation process. Moving towards UHC and enhancing engagement of the private sector requires, according to stakeholders, a comprehensive, participatory and stepwise approach – rather than piecemeal and ad hoc procedures – to reform the current health system and health insurance in view of UHC. Thirdly, there is a broad consensus among the main stakeholders that a gradual – rather than ad hoc – transition is required for the successful implementation of UHC. This a fortiori necessitates enhancing and upgrading the supply-side capacities, not only in terms of provision and financing, but also the administrative and monitoring capacities (including accreditation, contractual and purchasing arrangements) which are all viewed by the majority stakeholders to be unfavourable and inadequate. Addressing and redressing the current frameworks and mechanisms is a vital area for better engagement with the private health sector. An attempt should be made to outline the future role of the private health sector and lay the foundations for an effective complementarity-based public–private partnership within the perspective of achieving UHC, through side-by-side cooperative planning, design and implementation of a national health care strategy between private and public health care stakeholders, as well as other key players. Keywords: Universal health coverage; Health care; Private sector; occupied Palestinian territory (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in World Health Organization. 2023, pp.1-68 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-05717732 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from HAL |
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