Rabat – Morocco’s Head of Government Saad Eddine El Othmani has announced that the government is committed to effectively implementing the generalized social protection, by initiating a comprehensive reform of the health system.
The reform involves increasing human health resources, establishing a health system governance, and improving the health services in addition to developing social work and rehabilitating healthcare institutions.
El Othmani made the remarks in the parliament’s monthly session related to public policy on Monday.
During the session, the head of government called on all representatives to engage in the process of making generalized social protection a success by putting the public interest first regardless of their political differences.
El Othmani said that the health program must be implemented within a period limited to five years to grant a further 22 million citizens mandatory health insurance and generalize family allowances to 7 million school-age children.
A key factor for the success of the social protection scheme is expanding pension enrollment for approximately five million citizens, who currently do not benefit from a pension. Also, to generalize job loss compensation for those without a permanent job.
El Othmani recalled King Mohammed VI’s particular emphasis aiming at providing citizens with social support and protection, particularly those from a working-class background or on lower incomes.
Health system challenges
To adequately implement the aims of generalized social protection, the government needs to address several persisting and worrying challenges. This includes the lack of personnel, medical equipment, and regional supply of healthcare facilities, in addition to poor health services in public hospitals, the governance deficit, and the shortage of funding.
Regarding the personnel, the Minister of Health Khalid Ait Taleb announced last week that Morocco is in dire need of 30,000 medical doctors and 65,000 nurses as well as other medical practitioners.
The figures revealed during the oral questions in the parliament session on Tuesday, May 5 are the same as the ones Ait Taleb outlined in a report in November 2019, as part of his department’s plans for the 2020 fiscal year.
The minister said that there is a deficit of 32,387 medical doctors and 64,774. Yet, the figures remained unchanged two years later.
To solve the difficulty, the ministry’s 2019 report suggested recruiting 62,000 medical personnel. But, due to the insufficient budget of MAD 18.68 billion ($2.11 billion) in the 2020 fiscal year, the ministry limited the recruitment to only 4,000 new medical personnel.
