AFD to fund 709 healthcare centers with €30 million

CAIRO – 16 September 2017: The French Agency for Development (AFD) will fund the development of 709 healthcare centers in five governorates with €30 million ($35.8 million). The project will launch by the end of this year in the governorates where the first phase of implementing the comprehensive health insurance will occur.

The Minister of Health and Population Ahmed Emad El Din told Egypt Today on Saturday that the project will include hospitals as well.

According to El Masry El Youm, the number of citizens, including children, registered in the Health Insurance Authority was 51.7 million in 2016. However, actual beneficiaries who seek the service amount to 12.5 million only.

Beneficiaries can go to 38 hospitals directly affiliated with the authority, as well as 676 public, private, university, police and military hospitals contracting with the authority.

The authority’s budget is LE 6 billion ($337 million) annually and owns 61 ambulances. It serves citizens in all 27 governorates.

The Parliament Deputy Speaker Soleiman Wahdan told Egypt Today that the implementation of the health insurance program may take up to 12 or 13 years as the Minister of Health previously said.

Wahdan said that the program would serve marginalized social sectors such as low-income citizens, the unemployed, peasants, farmers, seasonal workers, and poor women heading households as these are not covered by health insurance.

The deputy speaker said the program will be funded by the state budget, and that the difficult part is devising an execution mechanism and preparing a database of entitled beneficiaries.

On August 20, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail held a meeting with the ministers of health and finance to review the final draft of integrated health insurance law. Some remarks regarding actuarial studies and suggestions on law execution were discussed.

Both ministers presented the procedures and steps taken in drafting the law. Ismail urged them to address the remarks in order to finalize the draft law for the government to take the legal measures to promulgate it as soon as possible.