Modernisation of public health sector

Mauritius has been developing very fast. There is a very sensitive matter that affects everyone’s life, which is the health sector. According to the current government programme, there is a need to decrease pressure on the five regional hospitals in Mauritius. A master plan has been proposed to prepare to help to improve the health sector.
The latest Health Statistics Report (2013) indicates that there have been 212,520 in patients and 1,060,362 out patients in government hospitals for the year. The number of doctors serving the public hospitals sum up to 1054, including specialists, in 2013.  This clearly indicates that we are way behind the standard doctor-patient ratio set by the World Health Organisation.
As we all know, we have long queues and waiting time to have a check up in our public hospitals, even though very good services are offered. To improve the health sector, there should be an increase in the number of health centres in Mauritius. There are already 116 community health centres across the country, according to the Health Statistics Report 2013. But very few people visit them, as they are open on selective days and time. More facilities should be provided in those community health centres.
There can be a new organigram for the public health sector. There are a number of community health centres, where patients do not visit. Furthermore, there are very few specialised hospitals, which are situated in only one part of the country. To reduce the jam in hospitals, patients should be motivated to go to community health centres to detect their disease and there can be another centre for preliminary diagnosis and cure. In short, what is needed to do to reduce the rush at the hospitals is another level of hierarchy to handle the patients more efficiently instead of cramping everyone at one place.
Moreover, the specialised hospitals, like the psychiatric hospital, cardiac centre and others should be decentralised. More people will have access to those services without having to travel much and this will reduce the hassle of patients.
In Mauritius, a children hospital is missing, unlike other countries. 159 vaccination clinics for babies are available but there is not a specialised hospital for the children. 159 infant deaths have been recorded during the year 2013. Children hospital should provide specialised treatment and care for the child whose health is sensitive and need more care to handle.
The public health sector should have a computerised system. This will allow quick and efficient follow up of patients. Computerised system indicates that if a patient is visiting a regional hospital, all his data including his personal details and portfolio about his health can be registered on the system immediately. This will facilitate the follow up of the patients, when in the future he is visiting another service in any other public health organisation. The patient does not need to go through the stress of filling form and queuing up for long. By computerising the system, we will be moving towards a paperless, modern and up to date public health sector.
We should take advantage of being a small country, where these data can be registered and the public sector can be improved in a much better way, to facilitate both the administration of the hospitals and the patients.