Bhutanese citizens, irrespective of who or where you are from, can expect to get the same quality of healthcare from the next financial year. The Health Ministry says it will prioritize health equity in the 13th Five Year Plan. Health equity is defined as a fair and equal opportunity for all to attain the highest level of healthcare.
According to Health Minister Dechen Wangmo, health equity is currently a big challenge in the country.
Health equity is considered an important measure of a resilient health system.
The Health Minister says every Bhutanese, regardless of where they live in the country should have access to quality health care and service. “Health equity is something that we have been very passionate about because, for example, we realized in 2018 that specialist services, gynecological services, and surgery were available only in referral hospitals. We said, what about the people who are living away from the referral hospitals? We have to reach these people with services as well. But then we realized that we did not have enough doctors so what we did was we adopted a cluster model.”
She added there are about seven cluster care referral centres that provide specialist services to the nearby districts.
The ministry is planning to further enhance health services and make them available to all.
“Equity, going forward in the 13th Five-Year Plan, will be a huge pillar for health to build around and see how we can provide pregnant mothers, for example, the services a pregnant mother gets in Thimphu should be the same as those a pregnant mother gets in Lunana. After all, both mothers are carrying the future of this country. So, they deserve the best of care,” the minister added.
Considering the human resource constraints, the minister said the same level of care as in the national referral hospital may not be possible. Therefore, the ministry will adopt different mechanisms like flagship programmes and medical camps to ensure that all people are provided with the same services.
Kinley Dem
Edited by Yeshi Gyaltshen
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