So, our health system is at “rock bottom” and the Colonial War Memorial Hospital is a “total mess”. Imagine that. This is coming from the former dean and professor of surgery at Fiji National University’s College of Medicine, Eddie McCaig.
And he isn’t holding back either. He says it like it is. His criticism comes as the Ministry of Health acknowledged that its 2015–2025 strategic plan was unsuccessful, raising serious questions about the implementation and monitoring of long-term plans for the country’s health system.
Permanent Secretary for Health Dr Luisa Cikamatana is on record saying the plan was not properly evaluated as it progressed, while the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted its implementation and created a backlog.
In a nutshell, it wasn’t successful, and that is a poor reflection of that planned action.
Speaking during a panel discussion on recommendations to improve Fiji’s health system, Prof McCaig said the country first needed to acknowledge its failures before meaningful changes could be made. He said no one in Fiji had ever claimed the health system was functioning well. Everyone, he suggested, knew we were struggling. And then came the blunt assessment: CWM Hospital was, in his view, a total mess. Now this is a shocker. Prof McCaig said CWM Hospital had nine operating theatres, but at the best of times only two were functioning. So, to that effect, he believes we need to bring in experienced health professionals who have “done it all” and “made the mistakes” to help guide reforms.
We have to admit we are doing a bad job. And in saying that, Prof McCaig also questioned the effectiveness of continuing to produce strategic plans without clearly identifying who would be responsible for implementing them.
From her end, Dr Cikamatana said the ministry was now undertaking a labour market analysis to improve workforce planning and implementation. The analysis will identify the workforce required, where services should be provided and the resources needed. Its findings are expected by the end of the year.
What we have here is a serious overview of the state of our health system. We are starting to see the pathetic state of affairs now. This does not mean things just suddenly happened to make it look this bad.
So, to all those who may have been sleeping on the job, and not putting in place plans, and not pushing for development over the years, we say we hope we are not in a very bad situation now because of that. This is cause for concern. This is a massive swipe at every minister responsible for health over the years.
Development work and any upgrade takes a lot of planning and work. We obviously can’t just shut down CWM Hospital today and start upgrade work. Or can we? What then happens to those in need of emergency surgery daily? What happens to those needing urgent medical care, for instance at the intensive care unit or accident and emergency unit? How about the usually busy children’s ward, oncology ward, maternity ward and other wards at CWMH? If we are to shut down the hospital today, where does everyone go? Do we even have enough beds available at other hospitals near Suva to cater for them? They obviously have their own list of patients to attend to anyway! What we are driving at is this. Someone, or some people, or a lot of people, over the decades, yes, decades, knew we had a major challenge. We know plans are in the pipeline for work on CWMH now which is encouraging. We realise the big question will be: What happened prior to these plans being unveiled though?
So now we say, let’s pull out all stops and get down to doing something about this, urgently! We need action, accountability and results.
