Results for Health

Ambulances, vehicles and medical equipment worth $1.8m pa’anga was handed over to Tonga’s Ministry of Health by the Japanese Government on Wednesday, 15 August.

For decades, the global health community has paid lip service to the critical role of unequal power relations, particularly relating to gender, in determining health outcomes. A recent report by the advocacy and accountability group Global Health 50/50 which reviewed 140 organizations working in the global health sector, makes for disturbing reading....The situation is even worse for men and boys, who, regardless of country, can expect to live shorter, unhealthier lives than their female peers. According to the report, only a third of organizations take a gendered approach to the health needs of the whole population, and no organizations target men and boys specifically. By Helen Clark and Sania Nishtar

Discussions around the overall health and safety of Pacific Islands impacted by extreme weather events induced by climate change were discussed at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting last week over two days on 15 and 16 March in Suva, Fiji.

The Minister for Health, Hon Saia Piukala said today that all main roads on Tongatapu have been cleared of debris and were accessible today. He called on people with leaking taps to fix them quickly to preserve the water supply on Tongatapu. He also warned of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea spreading after the cyclone.

The uncle of a New Zealand girl Toafei Telefoni (12) who died from dengue in Tonga last week says he and his family are concerned there is a lack of medical facilities to detect the disease and people need to be better informed.

An agreement to achieve universal health coverage and address non-communicable diseases in the Pacific region was signed by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Pacific Community (SPC) on 8 September in Apia, Samoa.

Drones will be trialled for the first time in the Pacific to deliver lifesaving vaccines to inaccessible remote communities in Vanuatu starting in August. The trial will test the capacity, efficiency and effectiveness of drones to be used on a regular basis.

Nearly half a million pa’anga was committed by the Government of Japan on 27 February, to fund three projects aimed to improve the quality of life of people from the grassroots level, and includes the upgrading of a technical course classroom building at Tonga College, installing a flake ice machine with water tanks for ‘Uiha and Felemea in Ha'apai and two new ambulances for 'Eua and Ha'apai.

In the Pacific, non-communicable diseases account for around 70% of all deaths, in Fiji that number is 80%, and the tragedy is that most of these deaths are preventable, Dr Tim Martyn of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in Fiji told delegates from Small Island States, meeting in Suva. Delegates looked at a Global Action Plan to respond to the food and nutrition challenges. People are eating food they can afford and that "is what is making them sick,” he said.