Critical Issues in Healthcare Policy and Politics in the Gulf Cooperation Council States

A brilliant mapping of our shared world's health care challenges, sharpened with keen insights from nations most impacted by the tsunami of epidemics of obesity, diabetes and modern lifestyle ills. A considered call for synthesising good science with new thinking in better prevention, better care and better self-care to create a road out of our well-being impasse. -- David Reilly, FRCP, MRCGP, DSc, director of TheWEL and WELWorld programmes

This is the first book to examine challenges in the healthcare sector in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain). These countries experienced remarkably swift transformations from small fishing and pearling communities at the beginning of the twentieth century to wealthy petro-states today. Their healthcare systems, however, are only now beginning to catch up. Rapid changes to the population and lifestyles of the GCC states have completely changed-and challenged-the region's health profile and infrastructure. While major successes in combatting infectious diseases and improving standards of primary healthcare are reflected in key health indicators, new trends have developed; increasingly "lifestyle" or "wealthy country" diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, have replaced the old maladies. To meet these emerging healthcare needs, GCC states require highly trained and skilled healthcare workers, an environment that supports local training, state-of-the-art diagnostic laboratories and hospitals, research production and dissemination, and knowledge acquisition. They face shortages in most if not all of these areas. This book provides a comprehensive study of the rapidly changing health profile of the region, the existing conditions of healthcare systems, and the challenges posed to healthcare management across the six states of the GCC.