Investment obstacles in drug addiction treatment in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Healthcare in Saudi Arabia incurs huge expenditure to the government as the public hospitals and clinics constitute about 80% of all health infrastructure. This is creating problems in funding a number of specialized healthcare units like those for treating and managing drug addiction. This paper seeks to examine the investment obstacle in drugs addiction treatment in Saudi Arabia. To support and conclude our findings, we have carried out a survey of various government and private hospitals and health centers in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. A descriptive approach was applied to analyses the collected data. We found out that the government policy of offering free services in public hospitals, costing a large part of the government budget is responsible for most of the problems to fund specialized health programs like that of drug addicts. We hope our findings in this paper can be used by the public and private health sectors for having a balanced approach to healthcare without draining the public funding.