Minister for Health Chris Fearne, has said that according to the annual health-related index published today in the medical journal The Lancet, Malta has been ranked 9th place worldwide with 79 points.
In a statement, the Minister said that this was an increase of five places compared to 14th place last year. Malta obtained full marks in ten indicators assessed, and obtained over 80 marks in 28 of the indicators.
He added that Malta is doing very well across many of the indicators related to communicable disease and child development. It also scores well on health services related indicators.
“This assessment shows that Malta is well on track to achieve several targets for the health-related SDG indicators assessed by 2030,” said Minister Fearne.
“After years of being inflicted with huge issues such as never-ending waiting lists and out-of-stock medicines, the health sector today is aspiring towards providing a service of excellence which is accessible to all,” said Dr Fearne.
He added that “being in the world’s top ten is a direct result of the competence and dedication of our workforce, the ever-increasing investment by the government in the sector, and the leadership and vision of our management team.”
The annual health-related SDG index – a summary measure of overall performance across 41 health-related indicators – was published in The Lancet for 195 countries worldwide, by the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 (GBD 2017), coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), based in Seattle, Washington.
The full paper is available here [1].
Photo – Minister Chris Fearne Facebok