You’d be forgiven for thinking that a cut of more than half in the price of oil, the chief export of the Gulf, would lead to a risk to healthcare provision.

In practice, the risk looks non-existent, in any case for the next 2-3 years.

Instead, healthcare provision is certain to ramp up hugely as rulers put in place statutory healthcare insurance schemes. We talked to Daniel Whitehead, director of medical strategy at Daman, the Abu Dhabi national insurer. He confirmed that provision in Abu Dhabi, one of the first states to launch mandatory insurance in 2007 more or less tripled in the ensuing two years!

Abu Dhabi followed Saudi Arabia and since then Dubai launched its scheme in 2013 and Qatar in 2014.

Dubai explicitly did not set up a national health insurer in order to create a free market for insurers. Qatar, on the other hand, has gone for a unitary insurer, which could see the exit of private insurers.

All this means according to investment bank Alpen Capital that the entire GCC should see a 50% growth in outpatient and inpatient healthcare between 2013 and 2018 to $69.4bn – a whacking compound annual growth rate of 12%!

Even if the oil price stays low rulers are likely to invest in healthcare to avoid another Arab spring.