The Ministry of Health identified seven health problems that need strong attention over the next four months to ensure healthcare for the Timorese people, following the semester revision meeting with development partners. 
General Director at the Ministry of Health, Jose dos Reis Magno said the health sector still had a lot of problems but through the meeting they decided to take action to find solutions to seven problems.
The seven problems include the high rates of maternal and child mortality, malnutrition, sanitation problems, and other diseases including sexually transmitted diseases.
“There are a lot of problems but the seven problems will get a lot of attention by the Ministry of Health looking forward in order to resolve these problems,” said the General Director in Kaikoli, Dili.
According to him, recently they made a concrete plan to solve these problems by putting doctors in the villages and implementing a program of visiting people’s homes to give proper health assistance to people in remote areas, as many people have difficulty accessing health facilities.
He said their efforts to bring healthcare to people hadn’t reached 100% of the population, but they would try to overcome these problems as they have a big commitment to bringing health assistance to the people.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Fernando Lasama de Araujo said opportunities like this were important to assess their work and identify problems within the ministry.
He said there were many problems in the health sector but it did not mean everything would be resolved within a year, as the important thing was to look creatively at urgent problems.
“I think the important problem is the mentality of employees starting from directors. They should eliminate sectoral thinking based on what everyone likes, but should think based on the system and then I hope they can resolve the situation in a short time,” he said.
