BY MIKE TUA
DR TITUS Nasi, Acting Medical Superintendent and Head of Paediatrics Ward at the National Referral Hospital in Honiara welcomed over the weekend, today’s arrival of the Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19), which will be here for a two weeks visit to provide humanitarian medical service in the Solomon Islands.
This year’s mission to the country with the arrival of USNS Mercy to Honiara under the Pacific Partnership 2022 (PP22) shows the solid commitment to the Solomon Islands by the United States of America Government.
The visit to the country will provide weeks of free medical, dental and surgical services to Solomon Islanders, and also will further strengthen the traditional friendship between the two countries.
Dr. Titus Nasi told key officers of the U.S. Navy Pacific Partnership mission to the Solomon Islands, who attended the weekend’s press conference held at Heritage Park Hotel, Honiara that the top heads of the government’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services and the medical staff of the National Referral Hospital are pleased and excited for the arrival of the US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy and its team of top medical specialists.
“On behalf of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, Minister of the Health and Medical Services, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Referral Hospital, I would like to thank the US government and the medical team on board USNS Mercy for this year’s Pacific Partnership 2022 mission to the Solomon Islands.
“Mercy hospital ship visit is a gift to us and we are very excited after we heard that the floating hospital is coming, we never had one around.
“So this is something that our patients, the doctors, and nurses are looking forward to and we are grateful that there are opportunities for us to meet with specialists who are more skilled than probably what we have.
“At the moment, we only have general medicine specialists or intern doctors, so with this, we able to receive more specialists, skills, and knowledge that we hope to learn from our visiting colleagues, who are all over the world and they would share with us about the experiences that they have in other parts of the world in similar settings to us and of course access to specialized very high skill and knowledge which is not readily available locally and sometimes difficult to access.
USNS Mercy and its crew arrived in the Solomon Islands today as part of the 17th year of Pacific Partnership 2022 missions. The initiative demonstrates the US commitment to the Solomon Islands in strengthening friendships through humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness.
This year’s mission to the Solomon Islands includes participants from the United States, Japan, and Australia.
