The National Referral Hospital (NRH) comparatively recently appointed a new CEO and more recently a fresh Medical Superintendent and other management changes have taken place which leads me to believe that old issues of capacity and compliance are well on the way to being addressed.
I would hope due recognition will be accorded soon by the MHMS and the Solomon Islands Government to ensuring the NRH can have its own budget becoming independent to operate as it must given the increasing pressure on the hospital from illnesses and diseases associated with NCDs cancer, hepatitis rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease amongst children, and a whole host of other medical conditions adding to the ever increasing pressure on NRH doctors, surgeons, nurses and ancillary medical staff, not even mentioning the inadequate hospital facilities.
A very great concern of mine relates to rheumatic heart disease and children of young age that suffer from the disease but rarely get the chance of being referred by the NRH offshore where they could be treated in say Australia or New Zealand and return home for follow up medication but with hopes for living a healthier and active life.
Referrals are rare these days because there is no money to cover the transfers and the medical costs overseas.
Another major concern that I have often raised through my letters, concerns the plight of the hundreds of amputee patients awaiting an artificial limb but despite a facility gifted to the NRH in September 2020 to replace the then derelict and now demolished Rehabilitation Workshop, the facility is unfinished being fitted out to begin the making of prosthetic limbs. I am informed the NRH has no budget funds to finish the vitally important workshop and see those still with a physical handicap prevented from the mobility they need and deserve.
When it comes to hepatitis how many know of the seriousness of the situation?
In the Western Pacific region hepatitis B is estimated to stand at 20 percent and hepatitis C at 1 percent, approximately one out of every five people in the Solomon Islands has hepatitis.
An estimated 53,000 to 79,000 are living with hepatitis B in the country and hepatitis B is currently ranked as the sixth most common cause of death at the National Referral Hospital (NRH) and ranked fourth in all causes of cancer in the country.
It is not known exactly how many are in the NTH presently with chronic hepatitis B patients but I would guess more than 100 are registered at the hospital.
The MHMS has included the hepatitis program into the STI/HIV national strategic plan 2019-2023 which is supported by the World Health Organization in efforts to curb hepatitis B diseases.
The question often being asked is how long will it be before health planners consider the NRH as important since it provides tertiary hospital services, as it is viewed primary health care does not work in the country?
Access to surgical care in Solomon Islands is limited and severely affected by a country made up of islands. Surgical care is centralized to the National Referral Hospital (NRH) on Guadalcanal, leaving a void of care in the provinces where more than 80% of the people live.
The Cancer Unit at the NRH is handicapped by equipment shortages and is still without a single mammogram machine so vitally important for breast screening of women for early detection of breast cancer, a killer disease in the Solomons.
Without its own budget the NRH is wholly handicapped to acquire and put to use the essential medical equipment needed but has to reply very much on assistance from donors, development partners of the government and some international agencies such as the WHO and Pentax Medical which as committed to support the NRH with endoscopy equipment, services and advice for the next four or five years.
There are believed to be on average about 600 deaths per year occurring at the NRH.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
