DUBAI - Bahrain could be forced to scrap universal healthcare due to soaring costs, the health minister said in remarks published on Tuesday.Faisal al-Hamer said the national health bill will jump to more than 550 million dinars ($1.45 billion) a year by 2025, leaving the government no option but to privatise the healthcare system, the local Gulf Daily News reported on Tuesday.
"The health care cost is escalating so rapidly that no government, irrespective of its wealth, can continue to provide free healthcare," Hamer was quoted as saying at a conference in Bahrain.
"We are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the costs of providing free healthcare to the people and have no option but to go on to compulsory health insurance to offset some of the costs.”
Bahrain has had universal healthcare since the 1960s with locals and expatriates able to access free medical services.
Bahrain has a population of around 1.1 million of which about 60 percent are expatriates.