I must confess it has been easy to have been side tracked today, Sunday, by seeing on my TV the terrible scene witnessed taking place in Ukraine and reading of the dreadful stories of the suffering and mass evacuation of millions of its citizens into neighbouring countries.
It is not easy to put aside such concerns but then I am mindful, as always, of the concerns of anxious parents and the suffering of children at the National Referral Hospital (NRH) in Hospital diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease (RHD).
Many of those (RHD) patients need cardiac echo studies to assess their chances of a recovery if only they could be transferred offshore to a hospital in Australia, New Zealand or India, but detailed cardiac echo studies cannot be done, to date, at the NRH, and it was only possible in the past for their examinations and tests to be carried out by teams of visiting paediatrics cardiologist I believe who came from Australia until the advent of Covid-19 halted the programme.
The programme known as Romac supported the cost of overseas referral of children less than 15 who were suffering from RHD but again Covid halted such a valuable health intervention initiative and left parents of those children desperate to find sponsorship for their sick children.
With renewed talk of the Solomon Islands once more opening up its air borders, I would please request the Solomon Islands Government the MHMS and the NRH to do everything possible to see to the arrival soon of specialist doctors and the resumption of the ROMAC programme.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
