The Health Ministry is facing service delivery issues in urban and peri-urban areas due to the rapidly increasing population.

The demands for primary health care services in these areas have sky rocketed putting a strain on medical professionals.

Ministry Director Planning and Policy Muniamma Gounder says along with urbanisation, the Ministry is challenged with several other service delivery issues.

“The other issues of service delivery were face include the growing burden of non-communicable diseases, geographical layout of some health divisions and the delayed health seeking behaviour.”

This was highlighted when the Ministry’s 2016 annual report was scrutinized by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Affairs.