Kuwaiti MP files motion to quiz health minister

Islamist MP Daif Allah Buramia yesterday filed a motion to question Health Minister Mohammad Al Jarallah over a host of allegations including mismanagement, failure to control diseases and embezzlement.

Buramia, a member of the 13-MP Islamic Bloc in the parliament, has been threatening to question Al Jarallah for over a year, accusing him and his senior aides of incompetence and embezzling public funds.

According to Kuwaiti law, the questioning should take place in the first parliamentary session after two weeks which falls on April 4, unless the house accepts a minister's request to delay it for another two weeks.

In the 41-page motion, Buramia has accused the minister of being directly responsible for the worst deterioration in the standard of medical services in the country's history.

"We were far ahead of all Gulf countries in medicare. Now, our patients seek treatment in neighbouring countries because we are lagging far behind," said Buramia, who held the minister responsible for the slide.

The questioning is based on six major accusations which include sexual assaults on patients and doctors, rise in cancer cases and failure to apply court verdicts, in addition to embezzlement and a rise in medical goof ups and spread of drugs.

Referring to specific cases, Buramia cited the rape of a patient in her eighth month of pregnancy and an attempt to sexually assault a Kuwaiti doctor at Farwaniya Hospital last week.

He said the minister failed to take any measures following the rape which encouraged the attack on the doctor.

"The number of cancer cases has risen to 'unprecedented levels' in Kuwait while the minister keeps denying and downplaying the issue," said the MP, who added that Al Jarallah has failed to take any measure to rectify the situation.

Buramia himself was a senior health ministry official before joining politics in 2003. He is reported to have been at loggerheads with the minister.

The lawmaker also accused the minister of not respecting the judiciary by failing to implement a final court verdict that ordered the ministry to grant a Kuwaiti doctor a licence to open a private clinic.

Last week, a Kuwaiti court sentenced Abdulraheem Al Zaid, a health ministry undersecretary, to six months in jail and dismissed him from his post for refusing to respect the ruling. Later, Al Zaid challenged the verdict.

The lawmaker in his motion also accuses Al Jarallah and ministry officials of squandering and embezzling a 30-million-dinar (around Dh371 million) budget to renovate medical facilities, and for failing to collect tens of millions of dinars from health insurance companies.

The questioning could lead to a vote of no-confidence if ten MPs sign the motion. If half of the elected MPs approve such a motion, the minister is dismissed from his job.

The grilling is the sixth in the current parliament which was elected on July 3, 2003 and the second against Al Jarallah. The minister survived the first questioning without a vote of no-confidence.

The writer is a journalist based in Kuwait