INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN ALGERIA
Algeria, though it is one of the countries in Africa with the best healthcare systems, their service delivery and health sector functioning still ranks at an average level in comparison with the standards laid down by International Healthcare Regulatory bodies like WHO, UNICEF etc. So there seems to be immense scope for private Algerian companies and Foreign Investors to place their bet on investments into Algeria’s Healthcare sector.
As an active investor or one with keen interest into International Investments, you may be wondering what might be the needs for healthcare investments in Algeria?? In this article, Hospacxx Healthcare Consultancy brings to you the reality of Algeria’s dire need for more investments to achieve Optimal standards of Healthcare Service Delivery.
INVESTMENT NEEDS FOR HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS IN ALGERIA
PRESENT SCENARIO:
Algerian healthcare systems is comprised of both public & private healthcare. According to latest statistics recorded by WHO, with a total population of around 43 million, the availability of hospital beds is only 19 beds /10,000 population since 2018. While in case of healthcare manpower, the doctor-population ratio stands at only 17.2 physicians/10,000 population and nursing & midwifey personnel-population ratio at 15.48 per 10,000 population. It is estimated that there are only 313 medical facilities functional in Algeria, each with an average bed capacity of 60. Hence, one can understand that the number of healthcare establishments and healthcare professionals are largely insufficient, in comparison to the requirement for such a populated country.
PUBLIC HEALTHCARE NEEDS:
The Algerian government provides free medical services & Insurance coverage for individuals availing the public health services. But, as a result, the government is unable to efficiently handle the health funding being invested due to meagre revenue attained from public health services. Though Algeria gains a substantial GDP annually from the exports of oil and natural gases, insufficient funds are allocated by the government on healthcare sector in comparison to other revenue generating sectors.
Thereby, this leads to deprivation of receiving optimal quality healthcare services by citizens and the need arises for more investments, due to the following reasons: –
1) With majority of the healthcare centres located in the urban regions of Algeria, rural dwellers find it inaccessible to avail the free of cost public health services due to insufficient availability of health centres in rural parts of Algeria.
2) With the increased demand for skilled healthcare professionals in the private sector and healthcare centres in foreign regions, there a decline in the number of healthcare professionals in public health centres and in Algeria at large due to increased migration to countries abroad.
3) The consequences of inefficient management of healthcare funding by the government leads to non-availability of healthcare facilities like essential biomedical equipment, advanced diagnostic technology, disease specific medical services, Maternal & child healthcare services and essentially upgraded medications and vaccines for immunization.
PRIVATE HEALTHCARE NEEDS:
Compared to the number of public health centres, only a small percentage of private healthcare centres exist in Algeria. Privatization of Health centres led to availability of higher quality healthcare services, of both general specialty and Super specialty, which serves the purpose of providing disease specific medical services, especially since the increased prevalence of non-communicable diseases like IHD, Diabetes, Hypertension, Cancer and such others.
The provision of such high-quality care is possible due to the availability of efficient and well skilled manpower and advanced facilities like latest biomedical equipment, upgraded medical technologies and pharmaceuticals.
Inspite of such benefits, it is shown that only 30% of the Algerian population utilize the private health services. While the remaining 70% prefer to resort to the public health services, irrespective of the known lower standards of care being provided. This is due to the increase in the Out-Of-Pocket expenditure from people who avail private health care, when they can receive free of cost health services from public centres.
Thus, the private sector as well are in need of more financial support from investments for the following reasons: –
1) To make provision of a more affordable and accessible healthcare services. The decline in the rate of utilization of private healthcare services is due to the non-standardized costing of the services by private establishments, which makes it affordable for only the wealthier group of the population, while the remaining Algerians, especially those from the lower economic group, would find it unaffordable and inaccessible to avail such specialized high-quality care.
2) To achieve better outreach of the services by establishing more number of referral health centres in deprived regions of the country.
3) Provision of more affordable and better healthcare resources like equipment, pharmaceuticals, manpower and other medical technologies for healthcare consumers.
CONCLUSION
With the increasing disease burden upon healthcare systems, there is great scope to make investments in order to provide better Infrastructure for the Healthcare systems with the latest equipment & technology, by introducing to the existing healthcare systems and consumers alike, a more patient centric healthcare services with newer specializations, recruitment opportunities for more experienced and skilled healthcare employees.
With the availability and thus, higher utilization of newly invested healthcare resources there will be better accessibility & availability of higher quality healthcare resources for healthcare system consumers.
For more information about the Country and Healthcare opportunities in Algeria, you can visit the company website on www.hospaccxconsulting.com or contact us directly.
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