Hon Dr Culwick Togamana, Health Minster and Mrs Pauline McNeil, Health Permanent Secretary along with members of the Ministry’s Senior Executive Management have this week welcomed with excitement six Chinese nationals – three doctors from various fields with their team lead and two other support staff – are in country to work at the National Referral Hospital.
The arrival of the team is part of the ongoing support of China to the country’s health sector.
The team brought with them esteem qualifications and wealth of experience and speciality in the field of nephrology, concerning diagnosis, treatment and management of kidney diseases, Chinese traditional medicines such as acupuncture and general practice.
At the welcome meeting, Hon. Dr Culwick Togamana, Health Minister thanked the Government of China for providing the support. ‘The specialities that the team brought will greatly diversify clinical management of patients at our National Referral Hospital, which will go a long way in preserving the health of our people and thereby lives’,
‘The Ministry also looks forward to outcomes of proposed trainings that the team will hold to build local capacity as well as planned assessments to identify gaps and proposed solutions to better improve health service delivery at the country’s only referral hospital’, said Dr. Togamana.
Health Minister describes this latest support from China, as continued demonstration of the strong commitment and dedication towards the partnership and friendship between China and Solomon Islands.
Chinese Ambassador to Solomon Islands, Mr. Li Ming expressed pleasure of the government of China to be providing support in this regard.
“China attached great importance to the medical cooperation with Solomon Islands. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, China actively engaged in providing assistance in combating COVID-19, including vaccine, Rapid Antigen Test and medical equipment, and helped build the isolation ward and nucleic acid testing laboratory in the spirit of building a community with shared future for mankind and the principle of sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith, which provides strong support to the health and safety of the people of Solomon Islands’,
‘The timely arrival of China Medical Team is another great milestone of the bilateral medical cooperation. The China Medical Team will share its excelsior medical skills and provide high quality medical care for local people. It is the spirit of greater love knows no boundary, healing the wounded and rescuing the dying would ever consolidate the friendship between both countries and jointly build a global community of health for all’, said Ambassador Li.
The team will serve at the National Referral Hospital for a period of one year before the next group of Chinese clinicians and clinical experts mobilized and deployed for continued support.
The team also met separately with the Dr George Malefoasi, NRH Chief Executive Officer, Dr Janella Solomon, Medical Superintendent and team for details of support.
The team will be working in various relevant departments of NRH as per their specialities and like the rest, report to the Medical Superintended. Part of the team’s terms of reference is to work with the national counterparts to find out further details on the current diseases patterns, the major associated hospital services challenges and needs in terms of skills, equipment and systems. The team will work side by side with local doctors and nurses in managing care.
-MHMS & PRC Press
