|
Maldives Health Care
In Maldives the Ministry of Health is responsible for
the
delivery of health services. Despite government efforts, a
major
constraint facing the health sector in the early 1990s is
a
shortage of skilled personnel and health facilities. The
WHO
reported in 1989 that the population per physician was
7,723.
However, when the ratio for Male was separated from that
for the
atolls, the acute shortage of physicians for the majority
of
Maldivians became even more obvious. Whereas the
population per
doctor in Male in 1989 was 2,673, in the atolls it was
35,498.
These ratios were derived from a 1989 total of sixteen
physicians: twelve in Male and four in the atolls. Also,
in 1989
only one dentist was located in Male.
Maldives' medical establishment in the early 1990s
consisted
of the Male Central Hospital, four regional hospitals, two
in the
north and two in the south, and twenty-one primary health
care
centers. The Central Hospital maintains ninety-five beds,
and the
four regional hospitals have a combined total of sixty-one
beds.
In 1992 thirty physicians and seventeen medical
specialists
worked in the Central Hospital. Furthermore, the
government
opened the Institute for Health Sciences in 1992, and the
200-bed
Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital was scheduled to open in
1994.
Each administrative atoll has at least one health
center
staffed by community health workers. Most of the inhabited
islands also have traditional medical practitioners.
However, it
was reported in the early 1990s that the atoll hospitals
and
health centers could only treat minor illnesses. Routine
operations could be performed only in Male Central
Hospital,
which had Russian physicians.
To provide better health facilities in the outer
islands, the
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration
with
the Maldives government, outfitted two boats to be used by
mobile
health teams. In 1985 two mobile health teams were
dispatched
from Male, one to the north and one to the south. Each
team
included a primary health care worker, a nurse, a family
health
worker, a malaria fieldworker, three community health
workers,
and a government official. The services they provided
included
immunization, communicable disease control, family health,
nutrition, and health education. In the late 1980s, a
third team
was added.
Data as of August 1994
|
