About MVR 16 billion from the state budget has been spent on Aasandha, the country’s universal healthcare system, in the last ten years, the company’s managing director Mariyam Shafeeq has said.
Mariyam stated at a ceremony last night to commemorate Aasandha’s ten-year anniversary that the Aasandha scheme has provided healthcare to over 300,000 individuals on average each year.
She said the sum spent on Aasandha comprises 64% spent on obtaining treatment, 31% spent on pharmaceuticals, and 5% spent on receiving treatment from abroad.
While noting that numerous improvements have been made to Aasandha, Mariyam stated that the most effort has been taken in the last three years to eliminate waste expenditure under Aasandha and to shorten the time patients spend using the service.
She went on to emphasize Aasandha’s accomplishments over the previous decade, stating that in the last three years, the system has been adjusted such that every case filed to Aasandha is finished on the same day, and emergency cases are resolved within 10 minutes.
The Aasandha scheme was started under President Mohamed Nasheed’s administration, and since then, subsequent administrations have enacted several changes to the scheme.
