"..Healthcare costs puts Bahrain's free service in jeopardy.."

Bahrain’s free healthcare system is in jeopardy from rapidly rising costs, the Health Minister Dr Faisal Al Hamer said .

The kingdom’s annual health budget, currently BD170m a year, is set to more than triple to BD553m by 2025, making free care for all impossible, Gulf Daily News reported.

"We are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the costs of providing free healthcare to the people and have no option but to go on to compulsory health insurance to offset some of the costs," Al Hamer told the Bahrain World Economic Summit 2009.