Government must establish regional facilities to relieve tension on IGMH: WHO Regional Director

Maldives government must establish better regional healthcare facilities in the atolls to cater for the dispersed population and to relieve tension on the main tertiary hospitals in the capital, the visiting World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said today.

“What we think could be done is to build up regional facilities so that those seeking healthcare don’t really have to come to Male’ all the time to the tertiary level [hospitals].

"But the regional facility has to be of a level where they are satisfied that they would get the kind of healthcare that they would get from IGMH [Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital],” Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said, while speaking at a press conference in Traders Hotel in Male’.

With regard to establishing regional centres, The WHO Regional Director suggested that the Maldivian government should look for financial support from organization such as the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank (ADB).

“Normally, when loan is taken or grants are taken from these financial institutions, which are developmental in nature, it comes at a very low cost. It is almost a grant,” Dr Poonam said.

She also said that establishing regional facilities would also reduce transportation costs, both for individual citizens and for the government.

“Today transportation costs are high and therefore that could be addressed. We have to think of ways in which this could be addressed,” WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said.