Kuwait Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare Report

We expect Kuwait's total drug market to increase in value from US$377mn in 2008 to US$484mn by 2013, representing a CAGR of 5.15% in US dollar terms. Per-capita spending on pharmaceuticals will reach US$142 by this point, which is still comparatively low for the Middle East region. Total healthcare spending will rise from US$3.94bn in 2008 to US$4.38bn by 2013, growing at a compound annual growth (CAGR) rate of 2.14% in US dollar terms.

Kuwait, like some of its Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) neighbours, is suffering from a shortage of well-trained and qualified nurses. With no major state-run training programmes for women who may want to enter nursing, the country is now almost entirely reliant on expatriate nursing staff. Dependence on foreign workers means the government must now implement urgent education programmes for its own people to become qualified.

This would greatly reduce healthcare spending in the long run, while also boosting the domestic economy through higher employment levels. The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland provides international training schools for nursing. It provides medical expertise to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan. In Bahrain, it has been running courses training local students to internationally accredited standards. We believe that it will need to mirror this involvement in Kuwait in conjunction with the Ministry of Health to attract more students.

In a seemingly converse move, the Ministry of Health is trying to improve the retention rate of foreign trained doctors working in the country. Expatriate staff face high living costs, which the Kuwaiti government is planning to reduce by allowing workers' children the right to attend state schools. We believe that like the above nursing issues, the government should be working toward improving training for its own students. Earlier in 2009 it was revealed that some Kuwaiti students had obtained overseas degrees in medicine from Asian institutions, without attending a single lecture.

The regulations governing how such students could qualify in professions (not just medicine) which could lead to them harming to other people (intentionally or otherwise) are yet to be revised to restrict foreign degrees. We believe that retaining qualified staff from abroad is a temporary solution. In the long run, the government should be seeking to improve its staff composition and the infrastructure under which they work.