ABOUT four in every five registered births in Fiji take place at just five major hospitals, highlighting the central role of these facilities in the country’s maternal and child health system.
According to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics (FBoS), 82.2 per cent of all registered births occurred at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Lautoka, Labasa, Nadi and Nausori hospitals.
The bureau stated this concentration presents an opportunity to improve data accuracy and efficiency, noting that prioritising these hospitals in birth registration systems could significantly reduce data entry errors and delays, and strengthen the timeliness of national birth registration records.
In its report ‘Addressing gender inequities in on-time birth registration in Fiji through identification of priority geographic areas for targeted interventions’, FBoS stated standardising free-text place of birth entries allowed 99.9 per cent of birth registration records to be assigned a valid location.
“Almost all records, 99.6 per cent, could be assigned to a health facility, with a small proportion, 0.3 per cent, assigned as community births,” the report stated.
Only 0.1 per cent of records could not be deciphered and were classified as unknown.
The bureau identified 130 unique health facilities across Fiji within the place of birth data, including hospitals, health centres, nursing stations and private clinics.
However, 99.3 per cent of all birth registration records were linked to just 29 hospitals.
“The remaining 101 health facilities each accounted for 40 or fewer records over the 10-year period from 2015 to 2024.”
The data showed that 82.2 per cent of all registered births occurred at Fiji’s five largest hospitals.
These were the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, which accounted for 40.7 per cent of records, followed by Lautoka Hospital at 21.2 per cent, Labasa Hospital at 11.2 per cent, Nadi Hospital at 5.1 per cent and Nausori Hospital at 4.0 per cent. FBoS stated the five largest hospitals to a drop-down list in the birth registration data entry platform would reduce free-text data entry by about 82 per cent.
“If the names of the 20 facilities with the highest number of records were added to a drop-down list, free-text data entry for place of birth would be reduced by 99.1 per cent,” the report stated.
The bureau stated this approach would deliver “major benefits for data accuracy,” enable more timely analysis of birth registration data, and improve workplace efficiency by reducing the time clerks spend entering and cleaning free-text information.
