The Moroccan health minister has reiterated that emergency and psychiatric care will form key parts of ongoing efforts to reform the healthcare system.
IHS Global Insight perspective | |
Significance | The Moroccan healthcare system has been characterised by disparity in standards with accessible care in urban areas and poor access to care in more rural areas of the country. |
Implications | Morocco is set to see the opening and expansion of healthcare facilities, especially in the areas of emergency medicine and psychiatric care. |
Outlook | Despite planned improvements in infrastructure, especially for rural populations, there inadequacies in the system are likely to remain, including poor management, a lack of a medicines policy, a lack of geriatric care, and a disconnect between the public and private sector. |
Moroccan health minister Houcine El Ouardi has stated that improvements in emergency and psychiatric care will form crucial parts of ongoing healthcare reform in the country, according to reports on Magharebia. This statement reiterates past comments by El Ouardi, who has noted that these two areas of care were to form priority areas of wider reform aimed at improving access to care.
So far, the Moroccan government has launched 20 rural emergency obstetrics units and purchased 55 ambulances and 6 mobile hospitals. Future plans are set to see emergency medical capacity rise from 4 million to 6 million patients annually. In terms of psychiatric care, capacity will be raised from 800 to 3,000 beds by the end of 2016. Also covered under the psychiatric care improvements, the government has opened three drug rehabilitation centres, with another three planned by 2016. Shortages in staffing have been highlighted as potential problems for the implementation of the policy, and to address this, the government will establish four university departments in order meet government targets to have 30 psychiatrists and 185 psychiatric nurses graduate annually.
Outlook and implications
Morocco has already seen improvements in access to healthcare with the launching of the Régime d'Assistance Médicale (RAMED) scheme in December 2011 (see Morocco: 19 December 2011: RAMED Extended to All Poverty Groups in Morocco). This scheme was established with the goal of improving access to care by providing social health insurance coverage through sliding insurance premium contributions. Some 8.5 million people (30%) of the population have achieved access to the scheme. With so many additional patients accessing care, the government plans to expand infrastructure seem inevitable.
Despite improvements in healthcare insurance coverage, there remains significant disparity between urban and rural areas, with some 70% of rural patients remaining more than 5 km from the nearest health facility; of this number, 11% remain more than 10 km from some form of provision. In addition, poverty and poor access to adequate water and sanitation supplies have increased risk factors for these populations. The increasing number of rural healthcare facilities may therefore assist in improvements to access and also health improvements.
In terms of psychiatric care provisions, government plans may have been shaped by a damming September 2012 report into psychiatric care in the country by the Moroccan National Human Rights Council. This report highlighted serious failures in the structure, provision, and implementation of psychiatric care.
For greater capitalisation of resources to occur, Morocco will need to address a number of other challenges unique to its healthcare system. These factors, highlighted in a World Health Organization (WHO) report, include poor management, absence of a medicines policy leading to wastage and low generic uptake, lack of connection with local communities, and a disconnect with the private sector. In addition, the WHO highlighted a lack of geriatric care and retirement homes – a deficiency that places a greater burden on the healthcare system.