Sellal: “Much remains to be done to fulfill the citizens’ health care needs”

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal has asserted that ensuring citizens’ unrestrained access to health care is one of the major missions of the State and is part of its bounden commitments.

In his opening address on Monday at the National Conference on Health held at the Palace of the Nations west of Algiers, Sellal stressed that ensuring public healthcare is the primary way towards enforcing social justice, while reaffirming the State’s determination to pursue efforts for the development of this vital sector of activity at all levels.

In this connection, he said that the economic and social development witnessed by Algeria over the past years had brought out “new challenges” in the field of health, notably in the support health treatment for chronically-ill   patients, preventions against new pathologies and the need for improving the public health care system.

Recalling the “huge means” mobilized by the State to modernize health facilities across Algeria so as to increase their capacities and scatter them equally throughout the national territory, the Prime Minister however acknowledged that much remains to be done in order to live up to the growing health-care needs of the Algerian citizens.

Moreover, Sellal added that free care is a national asset that must be preserved through the establishment of a renewed framework that ensures modern management and rational expenditure.

The Prime Minister also stressed that the recommendations stemming from this timely conference will constitute the basis for the government in the working out of a new law that will outline the national health system for the years to come so as to make the national health care comply with international standards.