WHO hands over critical medical equipment to Hithadhoo Regional Hospital

On Monday 14 March 2011, Dr J.M. Luna, WHO Representative to the Republic of Maldives, handed over to Hussain Rasheed, Managing Director of the Southern Health Services Corporation, critical medical equipment requested by President Mohamed Nasheed, for Hithadhoo Regional Hospital.

Present at the function were the Deputy Mayor of Addu City, Hassan Shahid, the Addu City Counselor Thayyib Abdullah, and medical, paramedical and administrative staff from Hithadhoo Regional Hospital.

During his address, Dr Luna highlighted that in the past 30 years, Maldives has achieved many milestones in the area of health utilizing a very basic, but efficient primary health care approach. He said that there have not been cases of vaccine preventable diseases for the last 20 years and that neonatal tetanus is a thing of the past. Although measles outbreaks occur sporadically, it affects mainly young adults who were not immunized in their childhood. He also said that although Dengue remains a threat, other deadly communicable diseases are under control and that pregnant women visit the health services at least 2 to 3 times during their pregnancy, and that by now, most deliveries are attended by skilled birth attendants.

Nevertheless, he noted that in the last few years there has been a trend in the utilization of the health services in the country, where curative services are being promoted while the primary health care approach (PHC) is being neglected. He also noted that the health seeking behaviour of the population too has changed whereby now, people prefer to be seen by a specialist instead of a general practitioner, which most of the time is available only in Male’. Dr Luna also mentioned that many times because health facilities at the periphery lack critical medical equipment (either because it is damaged or non-existent), people are forced to travel to the capital for medical care. This has increased the costs of medical care, where sometimes it is the government that has to bear the costs for medical evacuation while at the periphery, valuable human resources are wasted and underutilized because of the lack of diagnostic facilities.

Hithadhoo Hospital is one of the oldest hospitals established in the Maldives and the second largest referral hospital in the country, with a coverage of over 30,000 people or 10% of the total population. Strengthening the hospital services at Hithadhoo Hospital may attract patients from neighboring atolls and although there are health facilities including atoll hospitals in all of the four southernmost atolls, Hithadhoo Hospital has the potential to be a strong health promoter to support those health facilities in undertaking activities that will reduce for example, the risks of non-communicable diseases like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and others. In his letter to the WHO Regional Director, the President also mentioned his vision of utilizing Hithadhoo hospital as a training center for the Faculty of Health Sciences to train nurses and paramedics required to provide public health services in the country.

WHO agreed to support the request of President Nasheed to procure critical equipment and to make it operational in order to meet the needs of the people of the Southern Region of the Maldives and to provide quality health services on a sustainable basis contributing at the same time to the revitalization of the primary health care approach by using this facility for training health workers that will provide public health services to the population.