Ritika Pratap 
[File Photo]
Finance Minister, Professor Biman Prasad says Fijians will need to be a little more patient, as measures are being put in place to improve our health services.
Speaking on Saqamoli Matters last night, Prasad says it’s just been six months since the coalition government came into power and they haven’t been able to fix many things in the health sector.
The plight of our nurses has been a major highlight recently, but in the new budget, the Health Ministry’s salaries and wages budget have increased to $126.4 million.
Prasad says this allocation will also cater for new nursing interns, assistants and aids.
“I am saying to the people that we will need to patience, we will need your understanding. We sympathize when you go out to the hospital and you have to wait for five hours for somebody to get you a bed. These are real problems that our people are facing and somehow, for some reason it was not getting onto people who were running government before.”
Minister for Finance, Professor Biman Prasad.
Prasad says they understand the pandemic did put stress on the health system, but he believes the problems started well before COVID.
“When we were hit by COVID we were actually in a bad shape already in terms of our health, our economy and preparedness for anything. So what COVID did though was exposed those vulnerabilities and lack of facilities in our public hospitals and health centres around the country.”
The Finance Minister stresses the new budget has a clear focus and they will ensure that the permanent secretaries and the various ministers get down to work as soon as the budget is passed.
