Saudi healthcare booms as state scrambles to close welfare gap

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Saudi healthcare booms as state scrambles to close welfare gap

By Marwa Rashad and Olzhas Auyezov RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Stock market listings planned by two of Saudi Arabia's biggest private hospital operators point to a boom in its healthcare industry, as political pressures prompt the government to pour huge sums into the underdeveloped sector. But healthcare has lagged, partly because of government inefficiency and bureaucracy. Now the mediocre quality of state-run healthcare has become a political liability for the government, especially in the wake of the 2011 uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, which underlined the risks of social discontent. So the government has embarked on a drive to reform the sector, building hundreds of hospitals, providing interest-free loans to private companies and changing health insurance rules.

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