CHOISEUL will benefit from the planned deployment of five (5) intern doctors who will be doing their provincial attachment in Sasamunga Area Health Clinic in Choiseul Province.
Deployment will be consecutive, one after the other with the first to be deployed on the 11th of October and the final intern towards the end of November.
Dr Gregory Jilini, Deputy Secretary Health Care, Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS), explained that, “These interns are medical doctors who have just graduated from medical schools and as such will need to undergo at least two years supervised practice before they can be qualified to be registered as general medical practitioners”.
“During the course of the internship program they will be doing their rotations within various departments at the National Referral Hospital and are also required to spend some time at the province, in this case, Sasamunga health center have been selected for these five intern doctors”, said Dr Jilini.
Dr Jilini also explained that during the internship program, they will be assessed based on their competencies and professional conduct and these assessments are usually done by heads of departments. “They also have log books to record procedures and activities they performed which will have to be signed by their supervisors. So basically once they are successful they will be eligible for full registration with the Solomon Islands Medical and Dental Board”. Said Dr Jilini.
The deployment of these intern doctors to Choiseul will be the first, as Gizo and Kilufi hospitals in Western and Malaita provinces have often been used for the internship programs.
“We are indeed pleased to note that these intern doctors will be deployed here, first time we have been selected for this program thus we are grateful because although with intern status, these doctors will enable Sasamunga health center to be able to attend to cases that would have otherwise be referred to Taro and Gizo hospital”, said Mr. Timba.
“We have very limited number of doctors serving in the province for this year, in fact 2 doctors with one currently on leave and will return early next year therefore the consecutive deployments of the intern doctors will greatly provide additional support at least until January 2022”, said the provincial health director.
