House of Representatives Discusses Report of Thematic Working Group in Charge of Healthcare System

The House of Representatives held a plenary sitting on Tuesday, June 8, 2021, devoted to the presentation and discussion of the report of the Thematic Working Group in Charge of the Healthcare System. The sitting was chaired by Speaker of House of Representatives Habib El Malki and attended by Minister of Health Khalid Aït Taleb.

At the beginning of the sitting, the Speaker of the House of Representatives stressed that the Kingdom of Morocco had made enormous efforts to overcome the repercussions of Covid-19. The Speaker lauded the wise vision and strategic and proactive approach of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, which has enabled our country to face the pandemic through many initiatives and qualitative measures undertaken at multiple levels to limit its impacts. He also praised the project of generalizing social protection, launched by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, "which is a social revolution."

Mr. Mustapha Ibrahimi, one of the rapporteurs of the Group, presented a summary of the report, in which he recalled the establishment last year of the working group under the chairmanship of Speaker of the House Habib El Malki. Mr. Ibrahimi presented the Group’s working methodology and highlighted its commitment to hearing presentations of many government departments, national and international bodies, health experts, and professionals, and to consider several national and international reports and references on the matter.

The rapporteur explained that the Group had set out four axes of work. First, health coverage, health financing, and governance of the sector, then the practice of medical and paramedical professions and scientific research. The third and fourth axes are related respectively to infrastructure and health map and social determinants of health.

The report focused on the dysfunctions of the healthcare system, mainly those relating to the absence of certain laws, the need to review and amend a set of existing laws, the elaboration of new legal texts, and the issuance of related regulations. The report also tackled establishing the institutions set out in the legislation and developing a general code of health legislation.

The report also mentioned the organizational challenges of the health sector, the lack and weakness of infrastructure, the lack of regional justice in their distribution, the weakness of the equipment needed to ensure the quality of medical and paramedical services, the deficiency of health governance, and financing, and the lack of material and human resources in comparison with the recommendations of the WHO.

The report presented proposals and recommendations to open up to modern and advanced mechanisms, such as the adoption of clinical trials and the reflection on innovative financing, taking into account the best practices of pioneering international experiences in research and health and human sciences.

This parliamentary initiative also stressed the importance of giving particular attention to the fields of training in health sciences, particularly health economics, which has become a priority for strengthening the system of training and specialized scientific research and for qualifying the human resources capable of accompanying most developments in this vital scientific field.

The report suggested working towards developing and implementing a health system code, which would be a comprehensive and efficient legal mechanism to overcome the various constraints and challenges. It also suggested the creation of a Higher Health Council and the National Medicines Agency.

In their interventions, the representatives highlighted the various challenges related to the health sector in Morocco, including health financing, which they considered among the challenges impeding the reform of the health sector. They also noted that it is impossible to speak of upgrading and increasing the number of human resources or improving infrastructure without an increase in the budget allocated to the sector to reach the levels proposed by the WHO.

They also stressed the imperative of unifying governance and health coverage management into a single pole to reduce the fragmentation in pooling resources and improve the capacity to redistribute prepaid funds. They also called for more investment in the health sector as a productive and economic sector for future generations and not just as a social sector, but also shifting compensation costs towards integrated social protection mechanisms and the unified social register, particularly to finance health costs.

Besides, the representatives called for diversifying resources through establishing health taxes, opening up to ministerial departments, regions, and the private sector, and establishing mechanisms to encourage the latter to finance scientific research and innovation. They also called for establishing an efficient pharmaceutical policy that would fulfill the needs of Moroccans and developing and reviewing certain laws and regulations relating to the healthcare system.

For his part, Minister of Health Khalid Aït Taleb commended the observations, conclusions, and recommendations included in the report of the Thematic Working Group in Charge of Healthcare System and the serious discussions that marked the statements of the members in the plenary sitting.

The Minister affirmed that the concern to improve and modernize the national health system, after its importance and its place in guaranteeing the health security of the country and citizens, and the protection of public health have been demonstrated, remains a major strategic objective on which the public authorities of our country rely. He also highlighted several initiatives undertaken by the Government to advance the national healthcare system. 

The Minister of Health also noted the constraints in the health sector in our country and revealed that the Ministry is working on a structural reform program based on four pillars that address the development of human resources, the rehabilitation of health services by strengthening the regional dimension, the adoption of new governance of the healthcare system, and the development of an integrated information system for processing all healthcare system data.