At the 40 th independence year, Mauritius
achievements were especially in the economic area but there were also
many other reasons for celebration. Among these Mauritius achievements
we can mention the life expectancy, which increased while the infant
mortality has kept on falling since the ‘60s. Still, the health system
is challenged by the chronic diseases and by drugs.
The Mauritius
achievements were seen as very hard to get with more than 40 years ago,
when the island became independent of British. This Indian Ocean
island’s prospects seemed few at that time, since the island was
depending on the workers’ remittances and on the sugar cane.
The chances
of giving away the poverty seemed little by two winners of the Nobel
prizes.
A specialist in economics at the
Cambridge University, James Meade also said that finding employment for
the island’s increasing population will be an important part of the
Mauritius achievements. This happened in the
’60s when V S Naipaul, an author, said that
Mauritius is an ‘overcrowded barracoon’ and that the
problems of the island defy the solutions. But
Mauritius achievements were registered in health
system, the freedom of the media, in education,
competitiveness, progress, growth and of course,
economics. The chief medical officer of Mauritius,
Neerunjun Gopee, had a comment in Mauritius Time
about the book written by Naipaul. In his columns,
he said that Mauritius is called by Naipaul the
disaster island and wonders if to get rid of
diseases like malaria can be called disaster. The
author of the articles says that for Naipaul can be
because the result was the overpopulation’s increase
at over 1.000 inhabitants on a square mile.
The people of the
island see things in other way. They are proud of
Mauritius achievements, even if they are small ones.
Among the Mauritius achievements in
the health area are also the disappearing of other diseases
like: meals, polio, schistosomiasis, smallpox, diphtheria
and whooping cough. The people of this island also now that
there are many other challenges their country has to manage.
The foreign tourists see Mauritius as a paradise full of sun
and idyllic atmosphere but poverty still affects some people
despite the fact that the income risen from $200 per person
in the independence year to about $7000 now. The
unemployment rate was around 40% in the ’60s when the people
of Mauritius used to go and work abroad, especially to have
nurse training in Britain. Now, the Mauritians work home
where the jobs can be found easier and the unemployment rate
is around 8% once the government’s investments in textiles,
tourism, outsourcing and offshore banking. The national
budget considers health as a basic human right and as a
priority but some future Mauritius achievements will be
necessary in the heath area regarding diseases like avian
influenza and HIV/AIDS and the drug addiction. The budget
for the health area increased from 9 million rupees in 1968
to 4.4 billion rupees in 2008, which is also on the list of
the Mauritius achievements.
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