Results for Health

Drug users are headed to prison or the cemetery, warns Ned Cook, Team Leader for the Salvation Army Alcohol and Drugs Awareness Centre in Nuku’alofa. Some people in Tonga are trying drugs out of curiosity, especially methamphetamine, he told Matangi Tonga this week. “But if you keep experimenting with it, the addiction will grab hold of you”. Unfortunately, the services they provide at present "don't reach those desperately needing help".

Tonga's drugs problem is on the rise, “like a cancer in the community,” says Psychiatric Specialist, Dr Mapa Puloka, who warns that government is too slow in tackling the epidemic and needs to urgently prioritize more funding before it gets out of hand. He issues a stark prognosis: “If they can’t stop it...what will happen is drug dealers or drug lords will run our government and end up being their puppets because of the power of money.” By Eleanor Gee.

Teams of veterinarians from New Zealand and Australia have treated hundreds of animals and performed dozens of surgeries during visits to Vava‘u in April and again in Tongatapu this week.

Zumba classes are promoting an active and healthy lifestyle in central Nuku'alofa, and Tonga Post is the latest to take up the program, offered by Tonga Health.

Tongans with illnesses that can’t be treated in the kingdom are promised high quality care and treatment in India with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Apollo Hospitals and the Ministry of Health.

The Ear-Nose-Throat (ENT) section at Vaiola Hospital will benefit from a Zeiss Microscope that was donated by Brisbane members of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) under their Pacific Islands Project program.

Free medical services by Chinese medical teams are being provided in Nuku’alofa, under a two-year volunteer program that began last year. By Eleanor Gee

A container load of wheelchairs and walking aids has been gifted to Vaiola Hospital in time for Christmas. Elder ‘Aisake Tukuafu of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, handed over the equipment to Reynold ‘Ofanoa, the Deputy CEO Ministry of Health on 30 November.

This month 100 years ago, the Kingdom of Tonga was in a state of distress and alarm after a deadly influenza virus reached its shores, infecting most of the population and killing between 1,000 to 2,000 people (an estimated 4 – 8% of the population at the time) between November 1918 and January 1919. The mahaki faka‘auha - the disease that kills, brought Tonga to a standstill. By Eleanor Gee and Finau Fonua.