Male’, Maldives – Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer revealed today that MVR 98 Million from the 2021 state budget is allocated to building a cancer hospital in L. Gan.
Speaking at the Parliament of Maldives today detailing next year’s budget, Minister Ameer said that MVR 4 Billion from the state budget is to be allocated to the health sector.
While the budget includes finances to build a Cancer hospital, another cancer hospital was previously agreed to be built in Hulhumale’, with help from India. There have been reports that the government has requested India to move the project to L. Gan.
Minister Ameer said that establishing a state of the art cancer treatment facility in the Maldives would be an important infrastructure project of the health sector and that would be initiated in the near future.
He added that this project is an important step in reaching the goal of decreasing deaths from cancer and other non-transmittable diseases by 15 percent of the number of deaths due to such diseases in 2018.
He added that the budget includes expenses to provide the public with a COVID vaccine, if it is found as well.
Minister Ameer explained that an important policy of the government is to provide accessible healthcare to all citizens, and that to accomplish this, the government is planning to develop tertiary hospitals in 5 regions. He added that ongoing tertiary hospital projects will continue next year.
He noted that substantial investments the government has been making into the health sector since last year have shown to be very valuable to citizens, especially during the recent lockdown.
