Over three decades of economic growth has ushered the Maldives with great prosperity.
Despite this unprecedented growth, the Maldivian economy remains fragile depending on two
major industries, namely tourism and fishing, both vulnerable to changes in the world’s major
economies. The Maldives has one of the highest population growth rates and one of the
smallest populations in the world. However, the Maldives has had remarkable success in
eradicating Malaria and bringing many other dreaded communicable diseases to the verge of
elimination. With the control of many infectious diseases, child mortality has decreased
considerably and crude death rates have declined adding decades to life expectancy. On the
darker side, prosperity and longevity has brought increasing challenges in the form of heart
disease, diabetes and other diseases of affluence. These developments, like many other
countries of the world have lead to enormous increase in the cost of health care provision.
In this same period, many developed countries have brought about reforms to their health
systems in an effort to contain the escalating costs. Three major systems of healthcare
financing are identified in literature, namely, public finance through general taxation, public
finance through social insurance and private finance through voluntary insurance. Many
developing countries followed suit by adopting variations and mixes of these systems.
The Maldives in the other hand did not undertake many reform processed targeted to contain
costs. However, a number of mechanisms, mainly in the form of employment benefits have
emerged in time. Political can be said to have shifted towards financial reforms in healthcare
and new policy directions have been formulated. The Maldives has hence entered the era of
reform and experimentation on how she will contain the costs of healthcare. With several
opportunities and uncertainties, the Maldivian scene is now set to follow suit. A comprehensive
process is now needed in order to provide affordable, effective, efficient and equal healthcare
services for the people of the Maldives.