A recent study - the first of its kind - conducted by the College of Public Health at the Health Sciences Center at Kuwait University, with support from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, revealed that the average cost of care for patients infected with coronavirus is 2,216 Kuwaiti Dinars. The cost of caring for a patient with non-severe infection is 1,544 KD, while the cost of caring for a severe case is 4,626 KD - approximately three times the cost of a non-severe case - for cases registered in hospitals.

The study, which took two and a half years and was conducted by the former Head of the Health Policy and Management Department at the college and Professor Emeritus at Kuala Lumpur University Prof. Syed Al-Junaid, Associate Professor Dr. Amrizal Nour, and Teaching Assistant Mohammed Al-Marri, showed that Kuwait is among the countries significantly affected by coronavirus (COVID-19) at the GCC level, with officially registered infections reaching 658,520 and deaths reaching 2,563 by the end of September 2021.

The study conducted by researchers aims to determine the total cost of caring for COVID-19 patients in Kuwait’s hospitals, as the impact of coronavirus on the local economy, especially in the healthcare sector, remains unknown. However, the study shed light on this aspect, showing that intensive care costs are the lowest in the Gulf for COVID-19 patients.

The study indicated that the average length of hospital stay for the sample on which the study was based was between 9-10 days. Physician and nursing costs constitute the largest proportion of the cost at 42.1%, while intensive care costs were 20.6%, laboratory costs were 10.2%, and the remaining percentage of approximately 27.1% was distributed among other items such as administration, treatment, and others.

The study can be accessed at the following link: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-10287-z