All cancer patients will be insured

AMMAN —The Cabinet, upon the recommendation of Health Minister Mahmoud Sheyyab, decided on Thursday to cover all patients diagnosed with cancer with free insurance.

Each of these citizens will receive an insurance card to be renewed annually till the end of treatment, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

The decision authorises heads of public and military hospitals across Jordan to transfer cancer patients directly to the King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC), universities, the Royal Medical Services (RMS) hospitals and Prince Hamzah Hospital without the need to obtain the approval through a special medical committee.

The government also decided to cover the expenses from the allocations of the Health Ministry’s and the RMS’ budgets.

Early this year, the former government took a decision stipulating that a committee of experts should decide on the referral of certain cancer patients to the KHCC, public hospitals or the RMS for treatment, which tightly restricted the Prime Ministry’s referrals of cancer patients to the KHCC as part of austerity measures.

Several protests and social media campaigns were held by cancer patients in rejection of the government’s decision at that time.

After the government’s decision to have referrals go through a specialised committee earlier this year, the number of cancer patients that KHCC received dropped to almost zero.