Advisory Council approves draft Health Insurance Law

The Advisory Council (Al Shura)  has approved the draft Health Insurance Law at a meeting chaired by its president, HE Mohamed bin Mubarak al-Khulaifi, local daily Arrayah has reported.

The council has also recommended that domestic workers be exempted from payment of the  insurance premium. Provisions of the law will apply to all Qatari nationals, GCC nationals, residents of the State of Qatar and visitors, according to the report.

The government will be responsible of payment of health insurance premium for nationals and employers will have to pay the premium for their foreign employees and their resident family members.

The first stage will include treatment in hospitals, followed by specialised clinics and primary health care, the report says.

There will be four stages of implementation of the Health Insurance Law. The first envisages immediate implementation of the law for Qatari women, the second for all Qatari nationals, the third for resident employees and their families and the fourth for workers. All these stages will be fully implemented by 2016.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Heath has said domestic workers will be excluded from the health insurance system and it will build three hospitals for them at Sanaiya, Mesaieed and Ras Laffan. However, a recommendation will be made by the council to exempt this category of workers from payment of insurance premium.

 A section of members of the council has said it is not necessary to offer absolute exemption to domestic workers but medicines can be sold to them at nominal rates, says the report.

Al-Attiyah attends climate meeting

HE the Chairman of Qatar’s Administrative Control and Transparency Authority (ACTA), Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, who is also President of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP18) has participated in the 4th Ministerial Meeting of the Petersburg Climate Change Dialogue, in Berlin.

The session was attended by Qatar’s Ambassador to Germany Abdulrahman Mohamed al-khulaifi and members of the delegation accompanying al-Attiyah.

Real estate  transactions

Transactions between April 28 and May 2 for the real estate sales contracts registered at the Ministry of justice are worth QR1,144,479,955, the Ministry said in its weekly report.