ShareKUWAIT: Kuwait Society for Human Rights yesterday strongly deplored decisions to bar expatriates from kidney dialysis treatment and certain drugs, describing them as racial discrimination.
The society also condemned a study to allocate the new Jaber Hospital in South Surra, which is almost complete, exclusively for Kuwaiti citizens and prevent expatriates from treatment at the hospital.
It also said stateless people are forced to receive medical care in the mornings. “These decisions aim to strengthen racial discrimination, constitute a flagrant violation of human rights, contradict humanitarian values that the Kuwaiti society is known to have and distort the image of Kuwait with regards to humanitarian and legal aspects,” the society said in a statement.
The society also said it rejects the decisions because they violate the Kuwaiti constitution and international rights covenants that stipulate that healthcare should be provided to all equally.
It said that the decisions will tarnish the image of Kuwait which was selected by the United Nations as a humanitarian center and it is “shameful and illogical for Kuwait to provide aid to all countries and still prevent expatriates living here from public services”.
The decisions will also “strengthen the culture of hatred against immigrant workers”, it added. Expatriate patients receiving kidney dialysis at public hospitals were informed that they will no longer receive the service free of charge and will have to start paying KD 25 per session starting Oct 25.
Some kidney failure patients are required to have two or three dialysis sessions per week, which means each patient will have to pay between KD 200 to 300 monthly, a huge burden for the overwhelming majority of expats.
News about plans to reserve Jaber Hospital, the largest public hospital with around 1,100 beds, only for Kuwaitis, stirred a heated debate on social media, with many Kuwaitis condemning the move as racist.
According to latest official figures, Kuwait’s population hit 4.2 million with 2.9 million expatriates and 1.3 million Kuwaitis. Kuwait applies similar restrictions against expats in other areas like imposing stringent conditions on them to obtain a driver’s licence.
Fellow Gulf states Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates totally bar expatriates from medical treatment at public hospitals except in emergencies. In another development, the appeals court yesterday set Nov 3 to look into the citizenship issue of former Islamist MP Abdullah Al-Barghash, a day after a judge at the same court recused himself from ruling on the case.
The lower court had ruled that the government decision to revoke the citizenship of Barghash and his family was against the law and ordered authorities to give them back their nationality.
The government challenged the decision in the appeals court, insisting that court has no power over nationality matters because they are sovereign issues.
Separately, Shiite MP Abdulhameed Dashti charged yesterday that a plot is being hatched to exclude him from the membership of all National Assembly committees. The committees will be elected by a secret ballot on the first day of the new Assembly term on Oct 27.
By B Izzak
