AMMAN — Jordan is a relatively small country with a population
of just over 10 million with a relatively small GDP of $44.5 billion and slow
economic growth. However, despite this Jordan still manages to have a decent
health care system in relation to its neighbors.
اضافة اعلان
Jordan’s
healthcare system is divided into public and
private sectors, and as of 2017 the total number of hospitals amounted to 106 with
12,081 beds among them.
The majority of all these hospitals are public (67 percent),
meaning that the burden of cost falls on the government to run and operate most
of the healthcare system.
How does Jordan rank?
Quantifying such a subjective topic can be difficult and
regardless of rating it is ultimately up to whether the people of a country
feel that their country’s healthcare system is adequate.
However, with this said, the World Health Organization (WHO)
set out to accomplish exactly this with a study conducted in 1997 that ranked
191 countries.
Although outdated, some argue that these figures are still valid
to date due to the universally slow pace of healthcare reform, just be sure to
take the ranking with a grain of salt.
Regardless, the principles of the study were extremely sound
and they based their metrics off of previous work.
They were able overlap
different principles in healthcare and economics to quantify the quality of
healthcare into five different criteria.
1- Care Process: Assessing criteria such as preventative care measures, safe care, coordinated care, engagement, and patient preferences.
2- Equity
3- Access: Affordability and timeliness.
4- Administrative efficiency
5- Healthcare Outcomes: Population health, mortality amendable to healthcare, and disease-specific health outcomes.
Based on this criteria Jordan was ranked 83 out of 191 for
quality of healthcare.
Areas of under focus:
Due to Jordan’s increased birth rates and influx of
refugees, the Kingdom has been struggling to provide access to quality
healthcare.
Limited financing, overcrowding, and an inadequate population of
skilled healthcare workers have put further strain on the healthcare system.
Since 2002,
USAID has worked with the Jordanian government
to modernize and develop our healthcare system.
As of 2021, USAID has
highlighted three primary areas of focus for improvement.
In light of COVID-19, the healthcare system in Jordan was
hit hard and put under great strain.
Despite this, the government was able to keep
the number of cases relatively low.
USAID is working with the Ministry of Health
in order to prepare hospitals — both private and public — as well as clinicians
to identify and manage the cases.
Furthermore, work has been done to expand infection
prevention and control measures by strengthening testing in order to control
the spread of COVID as well as implement public communication campaigns to
promote safe practice among the population, such as mask wearing and social
distancing.
Over the past couple decades, the government has been
working towards autonomy to manage and fund its own healthcare system.
Improvements
in increasing the efficiency of public health spending has rapidly helped
Jordan come closer to the goal of universal health coverage.
Improvements have also been made in tracking maternal deaths,
fighting antimicrobial resistance, and monitoring professional development for
healthcare workers.
USAID also urges further support from the government to the
private sector’s efforts to incentivize health practices to focus and support
on nutrition and maternal health.
Furthermore, better communication can be had
with the general public in order to facilitate knowledge and resources at the
public’s disposal to achieve better health outcomes for the population.
Lastly, USAID has noticed that critical health facilities
are vastly under equipped and overcrowded.
As a result, health service quality
may end up being sacrificed.
Suggestions have been made to expand health
infrastructure with the help of the ministries of health and public works and housing.
The expansion of the emergency department at Al-Bashir Hospital was a direct
result of this need but further expansion is still necessary.
Accomplishments
Since 2002, Jordan has renovated and modernized 349 health
facilities, including the Princess Rahma Pediatric Hospital, which serves
nearly 60,000 children a year.
During its expansion, they managed to increase
their capacity of young patients by 35 percent and provide critical care due to
the acquisition of specialized equipment.
Moreover, Jordan is one of only a few middle-income
countries to provide reliable and up-to-date data on maternal mortality due to
the creation of the Maternal Mortality Surveillance and Response System.
This
program is responsible for recording maternal deaths and causes as well as
generating actionable data that allows the government to identify root causes
and possible intervention.
Sources:
https://www.usaid.gov/jordan/quality-health-care
https://www.usaid.gov/jordan/fact-sheets/improving-health-care-quality
https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5407425/
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/jordan
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