More information seems to be needed to provide assurances of the restoration of rural health services and health facilities.
I am aware that an ‘Awareness Workshop’ has recently been held in Honiara organized by the Policy Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the PM’s Office, to brief the media on the new bilateral relations with the People’s Republic of China.
I believe it was both timely and necessary to hold such a workshop and it will have served to provide the media and the wider public with a better understanding of the rationality of the Sino-Solomon Islands ties.
Giving out the right information on policies and actions is very important because so often I have seen misleading and untruthful stories emerge in the press.
I had first hand experience of such a situation in the early months of 1999 in the Solomons when several foreign based journalists wrote untruthful stories of my expressed concern and planning for the security situation then unfolding.
Returning to the theme of the recent workshop and the information that was provided, I was interested to lean of the terms of the MOU signed in Beijing which was linked to Guangdong Province and especially the reference to the ‘Livelihood Projects.” These projects were said to include, mobile medical treatments and health lectures, improvements in public health conditions and status, and to provide livelihoods and goods within Guangdong’s capacity.
Having learned of such ‘broad brush’ projects and given the seriousness of the need for improvements in the health sector, I was initially disappointed not have read of something more explicit and especially information of what will be done to see a return of fully functional health centres and health clinics across the breadth of the country, especially as it known 56 are no longer used and are in total disrepair.
Some clarity of the situation regarding rural health centres surfaced in a SIBC news bulletin a Saturday or so again. This bulletin read, quote:
“It was relayed tonight, Saturday, in a broadcast by the SIBC that the Core Ministerial Coordinating Committee (CMCC) within the Prime Minister’s Office will bring a cabinet paper of resolutions to the Cabinet for consideration and commitment to the 2020 Budget.
“The resolutions were outcomes of a recent meeting with the Ministry of Health Medical Services, MHMS, and the Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs, MWYCFA.
“THE CMCC followed up on MHSM status, plans and cost implications regarding country’s health system, but more specifically, plans to deal with closed clinics and health facilities.
“During the discussions MHMS presented, there are a total of 408 health facilities throughout the country, 56 of which are currently closed for health services.
“It also noted that 24 health facilities are reclassified as AHC L1, and 18 health facilities reclassified as AHC L2.
“The resolution emphasised, all closed health facilities around the country be redeveloped with the view to building totally new facilities.”
The SIBC news came as good news, but one wonders how the MOU arrangement with Guangdong will see the necessary injection of direct funding the SIG will really need to restore the 408 health facilities.
In the light of the DCGA’s importance on providing better awareness of its policies and plans could some further information be made available to satisfy public interest, indeed concern, over the rural health situation and the development support likely for the national health services?
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
