Ministry of Health and Medical Services is looking forward to the National Development Plan (NDP).
Ministry permanent secretary Dr Jemesa Tudravu, while presenting the public submission on Ministry of Health and Medical Services 2015-2021 Annual Report on Tuesday (June 25) said the NDP would guide the development of Health Strategic Plan.
“We certainly intend to consolidate some of the things that we’ve been doing in the last few years and through our lessons learnt from COVID-19 and how you want to implement the health programs in the coming year,” Dr Tudravu said.
“We have a Strategic Plan 2020-2025 which is coming to the end next year, but the timing of National Strategic Plan will be opportune.
“It allows them (Government) to build a new or a successor strategic plan based on the Government’s vision for the next three, five and 10 years.”
He said their focus remained on the disease burden that we currently have in the country.
“NCD is not out of our sight. It is one big cause of disease and death in the country. So, it’s always on top of our heads when we are talking about our programs.
“But we’re also looking at how do we build resilience going forward after the COVID-19 experience.
“As I’ve stated earlier, we are targeting universal health coverage. And the process to get to universal health coverage is our primary health care program.
“So, we want to establish a solid primary healthcare program.
“Incidentally in the 1970s, Fiji was a champion of primary healthcare. So, that has kind of come down and now we want to reinvent and transform primary health care into this new age given all the developments that are now for us to utilise.
“And, through primary healthcare programs, we hope to address government’s intent for universal health coverage for the people of Fiji.
“We are aware of the impact of climate change on health and so, that’s built into our program for building resilience, not only in our workforce but also in our infrastructure and our support systems and also the programs that we carry out.”
