NON-COMMUNICABLE diseases (NCDs) are a shared challenge, says New Zealand High Commissioner to Fiji Charlotte Darlow.

“As we come through this epidemic and think about what that’s taught us about the importance of healthcare and the importance of investing in primary healthcare and the importance of looking at it squarely in the eye, the threat that NCDs has to the system, it’s absolutely true that if COVID disappeared tomorrow, NCDs will still be a shared challenge for health systems both in New Zealand and in Fiji.”

Ms Darlow said working partnerships such as FRIEND Fiji and the New Zealand High Commission was important in addressing NCDs in the country and the region.

Through FRIEND Fiji, the High Commission funded an NCD training exercise for community health workers from rural areas between Ba and Lautoka.

FRIEND Fiji director Sashi Kiran said patients living with NCDs had been struggling over the past two years.

“We are having more strokes, more amputations and bad injuries as a result of these illnesses and we are actually very concerned,” she said.

“So, we thought about restarting our medical care because we had to shut it down at the start of the COVID outbreak in Lautoka.

“Through this training, we will be able to meet with all of our patients in our rural communities and help them with the basic medical care they might need.”