Health Minister Dr Antonio Lalabalavu looks forward to a sit down with senior management officials of health facilities around the country in the coming weeks in an effort to appraise Fiji’s health system.
Speaking to this newspaper he said he would also try to tour all Health Ministry facilities across the country, if the schedule permits.
“Right now I’m just trying to sit down with the management or the leaders at the headquarters, the permanent secretary (Dr James Fong) and all the respective officials at the senior positions,” Dr Lalabalavu said.
“We are going to the various departments to sit down, listen to them and the challenges they raise, collect everything that they’ve said and try to put it in a best way to prioritise it that at least something is done.
“The first thing is to listen and that’s what I’m doing now because according to them there was no listening the last time.”
Dr Lalabalavu said he would be meeting with patients as well to gather ideas on how best the ministry could move forward.
“For now until next week, I’ll be touring around the health centres to look at the infrastructure and to see the staff and the doctors and the nurses and the other health workers looking after the facilities.
“Once we’ve done that then we can get the whole picture and idea of prioritising what’s needed now and what can be done later, but definitely a lot of things need to be done. I will try to tour all the health facilities in the country. At the moment with regards to the schedule with Cabinet and Parliament – and whatever comes under my responsibility as the minister – it will decide on the best date. I’ll definitely try and make that tour.”
Dr Lalabalavu said he had so far toured the Makoi Health Centre, Fiji National Kidney Centre and part of the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH).
