Jordan News

The “Our Health Is Right” campaign confirmed that the tragic death of the girl Lynn, may God have mercy on her and inspire her family patience and solace, brings the public health sector file back to the fore, just as it was raised by previous cases, the real reason behind it was; The decline in the quality of health services in the public sector due to government health policies imposed by the approach of reducing government spending on the health and education sectors and the state’s withdrawal from carrying out its responsibilities, by reducing the budgets allocated to these two sectors and pushing through privatization paths and charging the citizen’s pocket for education and treatment, and reducing spending on this sector according to Neo-liberal policies in directing and managing the national economy.

The campaign pointed out that it was not the first time that the Follow-up Committee of the “National Campaign for Justice in Health Care” – Our Health is Right, has stopped in front of the strategic, structural and financing challenges facing the public health sector, as it has repeatedly warned that continuing with the same policies that aim Clearly, the privatization of the public health sector will lead to the collapse of this sector, exacerbate the suffering of an increasing number of uninsured citizens (31% of citizens), and deteriorate the quality of health service provided to health insured groups within the structure of the Ministry of Health, its hospitals and centers.

In its statement, the campaign re-emphasized the statistical indicators obtained from the Ministry of Health sources, and its updated reports, which confirm the fact that the infrastructure and human resources have not kept pace with the reality, in order to meet the needs and the growing demand for its services. Here are the most prominent of these data:

– The number of specialists working in the Ministry of Health decreased from 1,214 in 2015 to 1,055 in 2020 (a decrease of 13%).

– The slight increase in the number of nurses from 10,738 in 2015, to 11333 in 2020, (5.5%), which does not meet the increase in the number of patients admitted to hospitals for treatment, while the nursing ratio for the number of patients admitted to hospital departments remains far from the minimum Which was determined by the “Jordan Nursing Council”, which is a nurse for every two patients in intensive care, and a nurse for every 5 patients in the departments, as the available data confirm that the actual average ratio at best ranges between a nurse for every 5-7 patients. Intensive care, sometimes for more patients than that. And a nurse for every 10 to 20 patients in the department, and sometimes for more patients than that.

The number of beds decreased relative to the population. During the years 2011-2014, the average number of beds for the population was 18 beds for every ten thousand citizens, and since 2015 until now it has decreased to 14 beds for every ten thousand citizens (a decrease of 22%).

– Forcing the emergency doctor to see between 100 to 150 emergency patients in one lip, and sometimes more than this number, and what this means of severe psychological pressure on the emergency doctor, and increasing the chances of falling into unintended human errors, which are mainly responsible for the difficult work environment and unfavorable.

– Adopting a new approach to fill the shortage in medical specialties through the Ministry of Health resorting to “buying services” of specialized doctors, for which a special platform has been developed on the ministry’s website, and “purchasing services” is a distorted form of use of medical personnel that matches the concept of contracting “a system of Day-to-day work, and all indicators confirm the ministry’s expansion in this method of using medical and technical cadres at the expense of employment through appointment through the Civil Service Bureau, as “purchasing services” means signing “poor” work contracts cut to cover working days without guaranteeing rights for the employed cadre, such as retirement. Health insurance and vacations, with the absence of job stability, and this represents a literal application of the instructions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to reduce spending on the health sector.

The budget of the Ministry of Health decreased from 650 million dinars in 2014 to 599 million dinars in 2021 despite the increase in Jordan’s population from 8.8 million citizens in 2014 to 11 million before the end of 2021 (a 25% increase) according to the Department of Statistics.

The campaign considered that the hasty treatment by the Minister of Health of the file of the deceased girl Lynn, and the reactions it provoked, with measures that included a number of transfers, and an exemption from positions and tasks, for a number of doctors at Al-Bashir Hospital, known for their professionalism and efficiency, in light of exceptional working conditions from a shortage of staff. And the scarcity of capabilities went beyond a case before the judiciary, and an expression of a pre-judgment against the doctors who were subjected to the “sanctions” of the Minister of Health, and what this constituted of unnecessary professional and moral defamation of their reputation, and an expression of evasion from confronting the essence of the crisis and the real challenges facing the hospitals of the Ministry of Health. In general, and Al-Bashir Hospital in particular, and thus evasion of finding appropriate solutions, in a systematic political issue, rather than an administrative procedural one.

Al-Hanaleh stressed that the strategic outcome of what the health sector suffers from lies in developing the capabilities of the Ministry of Health in its infrastructure, providing it with advanced devices and equipment for the purposes of diagnosis and treatment, increasing the number of its beds, building and training its cadres to fill the shortage and need, and compensating for the drain and migration of talent that left it due to difficulties. The repellent work environment and the weak educational and material incentives that it has suffered for over many years, are the same reasons that prompted the doctors of the Ministry of Health to carry out the longest strike for 62 days, in 2011, when they sounded the alarm bells threatening the Ministry of Health, and their demands were not heard at the time.

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