Results for Health

Training is being held at Vailoa Hospital to update medical staff on endoscopy, a non surgical procedure used to examine one's digestive tract.

A 5km “Colours Fun Run” to raise public awareness over the state of Autism in Tonga was held at the Nuku’alofa waterfront on Saturday morning, 13 July. Over 40 youth in Tonga have been identified with autism.

At a formal ceremony in the Royal Palace, Nuku'alofa, this morning, four Australian members of an Orthopaedic Outreach surgical team were invested with the Royal Order of the Crown by HM King Tupou VI, for their ongoing charitable work in Tonga.

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.