The health infrastructure inherited by the Coalition Government was among the most dilapidated that any government could take over, anywhere in the world, says Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Professor Biman Prasad.
Speaking during the Fiji Trades Union Congress National Council Meeting in Suva on Saturday, he said a World Bank report had highlighted that in the past 20 years, Fiji’s public health system had been completely destroyed.
“That is what we (Coalition Government) inherited here,” Prof Prasad said.
“We got the World Bank to do a report, review the health system, and many of you would have read that.
“What the report says is our health outcomes were better in the ’70s, ’80s and the ’90s.
“In the last 20 years, we have completely destroyed our public health system.”
He says the Coalition Government is in a process of fixing health infrastructure.
“You go around the country, in two and half years, we have fixed so many health centres.
“Nausori Health Centre, looking after 70,000 people, was falling apart, we fixed it in one year.
“In Kadavu, the health centre was falling apart. Staff, civil servants were struggling to live in their quarters.”
Prof Prasad said the Vunisea Hospital on Kadavu is being fixed with the help of the Australian Government, .
“We have initiated reconstruction of the CWM Hospital.
“Again, we got the independent review done and in the first sentence of the report, it says, “Years of neglect of the CWM Hospital.
“Remember, when we were in Opposition, we used to take pictures and show them, we still have some issues there.”
He highlighted that the Government is currently working on 27 health infrastructure improvement projects.
“In the meantime, we are also negotiating and a lot of work has already been done for a new national hospital of more than 700 beds.
“We identified a location as I said in my budget speech, we are getting a number of partners to work together to build it.”
Prof Prasad said the construction of the Indian Government’s super specialty 100-bed hospital project had also been finalised.
“The construction work on this hospital will begin soon.
“We are still negotiating with the Lautoka and Ba hospitals. These hospitals were handed over to Aspen.
“In the last two and a half years, we made sure that the services in those hospitals are much better, much improved.
“But we are still negotiating the model. FNPF is a major shareholder.
“Government is confident that in the next four to five years or seven years, we will have first-class health infrastructure in this country.”
