Emergency Treatment

- Andy Phillips

According to Alpen Capital, the GCC healthcare market is projected to grow at a 12.1 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from an estimated $40.3bn in 2015 to $71.3bn in 2020. The demand for hospital beds in the GCC region is projected to grow at a 2.3 per cent CAGR from an estimated 101,797 beds in 2015 to 113,925 beds in 2020. The UAE is likely to see an increase in demand for the number of hospital beds at nearly 3 per cent every year, to reach more than 13,800 beds by 2020.

Issues surrounding increases in population, lifestyle diseases, longer life expectancy and a rising cost of treatment – driven by over-treatment, over-investigation and over-prescription – have been well publicised. The media is consumed by stories of novelty procedures and novelty patient cases, and all of a sudden our view of what constitutes clinical excellence has changed. The helicopter view of the healthcare sector boom over the past 10 years has been predominantly a capacity planning exercise. Do we have enough hospitals? Enough doctors? Enough beds? Enough MRI machines? Enough insurance premium investment to pay for it all?