WHO report triggers health exhibition in the Maldives

A recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the health case situation in the Maldives has prompted the organisation of the country’s first-ever heath care exhibition from July 5 to 7. Exhibition’s manager Lilantha Jayaratne from Lanka Exhibition and Conference Services (LECS) said the WHO report compiled by the country office in Maldives showed the need to develop heath care as there were several structural problems faced by this sector.

He says that the opportunity for health care specialists and institutions to showcase their products and services are limitless and the needs traverse the full spectrum. “The medical problems that need urgent attention are from maternal and peri-natal disorders, nutrition management programmes, control and treatment of vector borne diseases,” Jayaratne said in a press release issued by the exhibition organisers.

The WHO report pointed to a serious constraint for the health sector in the lack of adequately-trained personnel. There is a shortage in professionally and technically skilled national health manpower in almost all areas. Jayaratne said there is an urgent necessity to address some of the short term health requirements of the island population, and with growing changes in lifestyles there is a great need for more options in healthcare which includes major surgery.

He says that there is also a need for reliable operators of ambulances to service the many islands and connect them to hospitals.Presently the key objectives of the health sector in the Maldive Islands are reducing the burden of disease, suffering and disability in order to improve the quality of life; increasing the healthy life expectancy of all Maldivians by reducing preventable deaths; and improving the health of present and future generations.