Azziz Akhannouch chaired a meeting on Wednesday morning, January 7, 2026, in Rabat, of the steering committee for the reform of the national health system. The meeting focused on monitoring the progress of this strategic initiative, which receives special royal attention and is among the most significant structural reforms taking place in the kingdom.
At the beginning of the meeting, the Prime Minister emphasized that the government continues its comprehensive mobilization in alignment with the high royal directives to establish an integrated, equitable, and effective health system that places citizen health at the core of public policies and addresses the challenges of the current phase and the expectations of Moroccans.
Akhannouch underscored the pivotal importance of engaging various stakeholders at both the central and regional levels to successfully implement regional health groups, viewing them as a crucial mechanism for addressing the structural imbalances in the health sector. In this context, he highlighted that health regionalization is a firm governmental conviction aimed at enhancing governance and ensuring functional integration and institutional coherence among various healthcare facilities within each region, while simultaneously calling for the acceleration of major health project completions, particularly university hospitals.
The meeting’s discussions mainly revolved around tracking the preliminary conditions for activating 11 regional health groups after the Council of Government approved the decrees to officially initiate their functions in December 2025. Participants also reviewed the necessary organizational and institutional arrangements to launch these groups, in partnership with social stakeholders, in preparation for holding their administrative councils and entering the implementation phase.
The regional health groups will enable the preparation of integrated regional medical programs that consider local specificities, enhance the treatment offer, and improve health care pathways, directly reflecting on the quality of services provided to citizens.
The committee also appraised the progress in unifying the information system across healthcare facilities in different regions of the kingdom, in addition to monitoring the status of the urgent health reform program, which comprises ten major projects aimed at improving service quality in the short term and restoring citizens’ trust in public health services.
Regarding the rehabilitation of healthcare structures, provided data indicated that the university hospitals in Laayoune and Rabat are expected to be ready this year, while completion work on ten additional projects will continue through February 2026, providing an additional capacity of nearly 1,430 beds. Moreover, ten more projects will be completed by the end of 2026, adding an estimated capacity of 1,637 beds.
As for the rehabilitation of local health centers, the completion rate stood at 81%, following the renovation of 1,130 health centers, with the aim of completing work on a total of 1,400 centers by the end of January. Additionally, the launch of the second phase of this program will take place this year, involving the rehabilitation of 1,600 health centers, with 500 further centers to be renovated during this year.
This meeting was attended by several government members, including Minister of Interior Abdelouafi Laftit, Minister of Health and Social Protection Amin al-Tahraoui, Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research, and Innovation Azeddine Moudou, and the Minister Delegate for Budget Fouzi Lekjaa, alongside representatives from the government secretariat and the Director General of the National Social Security Fund Hassan Boubekri.
