22 January 2019
Tourists to the Solomon Islands will need assurances of adequate health care locally.
While the Solomon Islands is keen to promote tourism to aid the economy and to be able to reduce the de-forestation known to have stripped the country of much of its indigenous forests over several years, it will be essential for visitors that might wish to vacate in the Solomon Islands to be confident of any health care treatment that might eventuate and be needed during their stay.
Much has been said in the local Solomon Islands press recently about the inadequate health care provisions in the country rural areas and at the main National Referral Hospital (NRH), despite the compassionate and caring efforts of the Ministry of Health and Medical Services doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel.
Visitors to the Solomon Islands if they are to visit in greater numbers and extend their visits must, surely, need to be assured of the health care facilities and treatment they might need in the event of a sudden illness or a more serious personal medical situation occurring during their stay.
It can be of no comfort to potential visitors to have read of the shortcomings in local health services and I suggest heightened all the more by an article in today’s Solomon Star which stated the Lata Hospital has been without a Radiographer to operate the hospital’s x-ray machine since 2016.
Transparency Solomon Islands (TSI) and I continue to raise concerns that the National Government should not turn a blind eye to health centres in the country but make it a priority to resource them with staff and proper machines and facilities to run the hospitals throughout the country. The same, of course, for the main reasons at the referral hospital for the whole country - the NRH - and serving the needs of a population now said to be about 615,000.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
