THE Democratic Coalition Government for Advancement (DCGA), which leads the Ownership, Unity, and Responsibility Party (OUR Party), has refuted claims that it does not provide the basic services that people in Solomon Islands expect.
The Caretaker Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, made the rhetoric during the OUR party launch at the Henderson on Tuesday last at Henderson, east of Honiara.
Sogavare expressed that no government in his right mind will deliberately ignore its people’s needs for essential services.
“We deny that we do not deliver the service as expected by the people.
“We deny that there are issues with the delivery of health services in the country and other essential services. We are aware of the shortages of nurses and health workers in the rural clinic, but they are not intentional. We need to make that clear.
“You know the government exists for that very reason, but unless it faces serious capacity issues, which is in fact the case here, people pick up on missed information on the shortage of medicine and other consumables. There’s not at any time that there’s a shortage of drugs and other consumables in the country,” Sogavare said.
He pointed out that the shortages of medicine and other consumables in the clinic are due to the negligence of public officers who are responsible for placing orders and who, on many occasions, live it too late.
“We are also aware that containers were not cleared on time. These are management issues, not political, and in a genuine effort to improve health services in the country, no government since independence has delivered so much health infrastructure during their term in office like DCGA,” Caretaker PM said.
He said that the following health infrastructure has either completed and others are about to be commissioned or are still in progress, and if the DCGA were to start from the east, it would be the following:
- The Manuapu Clinic in the Reef Islands, Temotu Province
- Wagina Clinic in Choiseul Province,
- Health centers in Isabel Province,
- Afio Health Center in Small Malaita,
- Aola Health Center and AvuAvu in Guadalcanal province
- Tikopia Mini Hospital, Temotu Province, and Tulagi Hospital Improvement Project, Central Islands Province,
- The new Kiluufi hospital project and the improvement of Kirakira hospital, Makura/Ulawa province,
- Improvement of Buala Hospital, Isabel Province,
- The three donated hospitals at Bahai Center, Honiara,
- Three-story hub center at the National Referral Hospital (NRH),
- The Malu’u hospital, the Malaita service, which is in the pipeline to be funded by the People’s Republic of China (PRC),
- A new molecular lab is at the NRH, Taro Hospital, Choiseul Province, and Goldie Hospital, Western Province.
“So we deny that we have not delivered the service as expected by the people for the last five years, but it would be completely wrong to be allegedly negligent considering the challenging period we have gone through as a result of COVID-19 and the 2021 riot,” he said.
He said that the OUR Party is a political party that is not afraid to make important decisions that they believe are critical to the long-term development interests of this country.
“We are a political party that puts the unity of this country before our ethnic differences, and we will do everything within the law and our national development strategy and structure of the government system to ensure that the country is united,’’ he said.
