The Healthcare System in Western Sahara: What the Official Sources Say

No French or international official source read describes, for Western Sahara, the split between the public and private sectors, hospital establishments, the number of doctors or beds, local health insurance or its access conditions for a foreigner. The World Bank indicators interface recognises no code for this territory and delivers no series. As a result, this page presents no hospital capacity, no health expenditure and no life expectancy.

As the status of the territory is disputed, this choice is also a rule of neutrality: only official wording, faithfully reproduced, is cited. Local information (hospitals, emergencies, fees) falls to local authorities and establishments; the French embassy in Rabat (+212 5 37 68 97 00) is the first French contact to approach to find out.

France Diplomatie has no separate page for Western Sahara; the territory is mentioned only in the safety section of its advice on Morocco. The health section of this advice does not mention it. Its recommendations are therefore repeated here for information, without asserting that they apply to the territory. They state that “it is essential to have an assistance contract or insurance covering all medical costs”, checking “the extent and validity in Morocco of your medical cover”, that the French embassy cannot pay the costs, and that establishments may ask for payment of all costs before the patient leaves.

The six French consulates general in Morocco (Agadir, Casablanca, Fès, Marrakech, Rabat and Tangier) make available on their website a list, updated every year, of healthcare establishments and French-speaking doctors by district. The page does not specify the district of the territory: it is useful to ask the embassy which post is competent for the area of stay, then to consult that post’s list.

The same advice recommends seeing a doctor or an international vaccination centre well before departure and reminds readers that the vaccines recommended in France remain essential abroad: you should be up to date with the French vaccination schedule. Depending on the length and conditions of the stay, additional vaccinations may be advised, in particular against hepatitis A and B, typhoid fever, rabies, tuberculosis and Mpox.

Among the risks described are typhoid fever, leishmaniasis, polio and rabies. For leishmaniasis, France Diplomatie specifies that there is no vaccine or preventive treatment: protection relies on fighting insect bites. For rabies, it is recommended to avoid contact with animals, in particular stray dogs and cats, and to consult a doctor immediately in the event of a risk exposure, even if vaccination is up to date. For water and food, it is advised to drink only sealed, filtered or boiled water, and to avoid raw or undercooked food, raw vegetables and cold buffets.

France Diplomatie recommends taking only the medicines strictly necessary, in their original packaging with the original labels, together with a prescription in international non-proprietary form, and not buying medicines on the street because of the risk of counterfeits. A traveller on regular treatment plans for the whole length of the stay, checks that their medicines are permitted and keeps their prescriptions. The possibilities for supply on the spot are not described by the sources read.

No local emergency number specific to the territory could be read from an official source. The French embassy in Rabat gives +212 5 37 68 97 00. France Diplomatie’s safety instructions have a direct bearing on access to care: when crossing Western Sahara, any route leaving the tarmac coastal road must be subject to prior agreement from the royal gendarmerie or the royal armed forces; the coastal route towards Mauritania must not be used at night; travellers on motorbike or in a 4x4 who wish to use unpaved tracks in the bordering region are invited to report to the gendarmerie or to a local authority. For long-distance travel, assistance including medically supervised transport and repatriation is the most useful precaution (see repatriation assistance).

An insurance contract sets a coverage zone. Before taking out a policy, you must obtain from the insurer written confirmation that Western Sahara is included, that assistance operates there, and that evacuation and medical repatriation are guaranteed from the area of stay. The other points to read are the annual limit, direct payment, the handling of medical history and exclusions linked to zones where travel is advised against (see coverage zone). The detail of reimbursements by status is in healthcare reimbursement, and the comparison in expat health insurance. Expavy can help you compare, taking this constraint into account.