About Qatar's Health Sector

The human health and social work industry added over $4 billion to the Qatari gross domestic product. Out of the 19 universities in Qatar, 2 of them are for medicine. There is the Medical School at Qatar University and Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar. Qatar continues to focus on health and expand. From 2016 to 2018, there was an increase in 4 hospitals from 16 to 20. In turn there was also a 1,200-hospital bed increase to over 3,500, and an increase of nurses by nearly 4,000, up to 21,000 nurses. In Qatar there are also approximately 9,000 doctors.

The Qatari government allotted $6.23 billion and $6.2 billion to the health sector in 2019 and 2020, respectively. However, even though there was a slight drop, the health sector is projected to grow by 2.2% per year until 2022. Qatar has five health centers, in Al Wakrah, Al Mashaf, Al Saad, Al Khor and Ain Khaled, all of which will be receiving expansion. Additionally, there are plans to build more healthcare centers in Qatar.

Some of Qatar’s largest healthcare providers are the International Medical Centre, American Hospital Clinics, Al Ahli Hospital, Doha Clinic Hospital, and Sidra Medical and Research Centre.

With only one local producer of pharmaceuticals, Qatar Pharma, the country is highly dependent on imports. There are also no regulations on pricing of medicines, making pharmaceutical prices in Qatar some of the highest in the MENA region. In 2018, the pharmaceutical sector was valued at more than $537 million, with 4/5 of Qataris using branded medicines over generic medicines.

 The majority of pharmaceuticals are imported via Pharma Express, which is operated by Qatar Airways Cargo.