The process of applying for a health card and its annual renewal, which used to be easy and could be done at primary healthcare centres as well as online, is now restricted to a designated department at the Hamad Hospital.
Recent experiences by residents wanting to renew their health cards have shown that the whole process has not improved.
A hospital staff, who spoke with Gulf Times on condition of anonymity, said that in order to obtain a new health card, applicants must still first visit the health centre nearest to their accommodation to open a file.