By Abdul-Jalil Mustafa.
Amman, 11 May:
Jordanian Health Minister Abdullateef Woraikat on Friday assured executives of private hospitals that the Libyan government would . . .[restrict]shortly pay the overdue debts for treating about 50,000 Libyan patients. The amount is some JD 60 million ($85 million). He said that such a commitment was relayed to him last week by the Libyan Second Deputy Prime Minister Omar Abdul-Karim, who was on a visit to Jordan.
However, Abdul-Karim stressed the need for checking all hospital bills by the Jordanian authorities before payment to ensure their authenticity and to uncover any fraud.
Woraikat made his statement during a meeting with the President of the Private Hospitals Association (PHA), Fawzi Hammouri.
His statement coincided with an advisory by the Libyan Medical Committee in Jordan to Libyan patients who had finished their medical treatment in Jordanian hospitals to leave the country before Tuesday, 15 May.
”Those who have completed their treatment are requested to leave, while others who are still receiving treatment and who have been dispatched to Jordan through the Libyan Ministry of Health can stay to complete their treatment,” the chairman of the Libyan Medical Committee Ali bin Jalil said.
He pointed out that many Libyans who had completed their treatment were still staying in Jordan thus ”adding to our financial burdens as we have to pay for their accommodation and other expenses”.
He said that his panel had arranged flights for Libyans to leave the country by Tuesday.
According to the Jordan Hotel Association (JHA), about 6,500 Libyans were still staying in Jordanian hotels.
Hammouri said, however, that about 1,500 Libyan were currently still receiving medical treatment.
The JHA director Yasser Majali said that the Libyan government’s outstanding dues to hotels for accommodating thousands of Libyan patients amounted to JD 90 million ($127 million).
The PHA records indicate that about 50,00 Libyans, most of them revolutionaries who fought to topple Qaddafi’s regime, had been treated in the Jordan since July 2011 at an estimated cost of JD 130 million.
Hammouri said that the treatment of a Libyan patient in Jordan represented only one-tenth of the expenses he would have to pay elsewhere. [/restrict]
