Building healthcare capacity in the Solomon Islands

​Building healthcare capacity in the Solomon Islands
 
Dr Ayman Shenouda

Unmatched resilience
 
A recent visit to the Solomon Islands provided some new insights into what it really means to be resilient. It is one of the least developed countries in the Pacific Region, the population languishes in poverty yet they make the most out of limited resources.  
 
The community here face significant health challenges and on multiple fronts. They lack even the basic health infrastructure, and universal access seems an almost impossible health policy goal. Despite this, I found the healthcare teams here work with courage and resolve.
 
Health system challenges
 
Persisting social disparities mean they face significant health challenges through what is termed the “triple burden” of disease. The community deals with communicable diseases alongside rising rates of non-communicable diseases combined with the threat of climate change which we know already hits hard too regularly.
 
The Solomon Islands suffer from significant resource deficits and the underdevelopment of infrastructure is driving inequalities. There is no CT scanner in the country – that places new meaning on what it is to be deficient in resources here. This is a country of over 620,000 people spread across more than 900 islands and it is without essential imaging diagnostic tools.
 
Coverage of services is very weak. This is partly because past development efforts have lacked the required multi-level coordination to support any sort of integrated health system. Almost half of all health expenditure comes from donors which is mostly put to disease management with little left for service system development. [i]
 
The Good Samaritan
 
My visit to the Solomon Islands was unexpected and prompted by a local MP who approach me following some donations I made to the hospital in Tetere. They were relatively small contributions in the form of blood pressure and haemoglobin machines. From this visit, I learnt that while small they were vital and are the sorts of supports that help to develop capacity and reliability.
 
The Good Samaritan hospital is on the coast in Tetere in Guadalcanal province which is about 40km from Honiara. The caseload here is overwhelming. The hospital is basic with about 30 beds, that provides mainly chronic disease management, emergency medicine and obstetrics. There is one doctor per 60,000 population, two midwives and two nurses. But with that they perform miracles here - this team provides obstetric care averaging 170 delivers a month.
 
This is a population facing serious health problems yet you would be amazed by how well they cope with very little. The four most common conditions leading to critical illness are malaria, diseases of the respiratory system including pneumonia and influenza, diabetes mellitus and tuberculosis.[ii] Screening programs are grossly underdeveloped which increases critical care demand.
 
Most facilities are short staffed and without basic equipment. From Tetere it is one hour  to Honiara for Xray or just to do bloods.
 
Despite the many challenges, the team use their clinical skills to the highest levels to provide the best care for their patients. It is the practical supports that they need the most and I think as a community of GPs we are well placed to do more.
 
Improving critical care
 
It is clear that the underdevelopment of healthcare infrastructure compounds inequalities.
 
In Pacific Island countries, including the Solomon Islands, there is a high need for basic critical care resources. Equipment such as oximeters and oxygen concentrators are needed as well as greater access to medications and blood products and laboratory services. [iii]  
 
A cross-sectional survey study examining critical care resources in the Solomon Islands found that inadequate resources from primary prevention and healthcare contribute to the high degree of critical illness. This study suggested that the solution lies in simple therapies and context-appropriate resources to mitigate the high burden of morbidity and mortality.[iv]
 
Therefore, the emphasis should be on the development and acquisition of simple and inexpensive tools rather than complicated equipment. This helps to prevent critical care from diverting resources away from other important parts of the health system. [v]
 
This makes perfect sense in these resource-poor contexts and certainly, the healthcare team in Tetere provide a stunning example of making it work with almost nothing at all.
 
Enabling partnerships
 
Empowerment is key to improving health service development in the Solomon Islands. The focus needs to be on strengthening the health system and improving access to services but bringing health care to these areas is no easy task.
 
It needs a partnership which filters right down to the community level. The Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS) is really working hard towards enabling these partnerships to ensure a more planned approach to funding health services.
 
Australia is the largest provider of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the Solomon Islands, providing almost two-thirds of overseas aid in 2016-17. We are the lead donor in the Solomon Islands health sector, with Australia’s main bilateral assistance provided through the Health Sector Support Program (HSSP) (equates to AUD 66m over four years to 2020). [vi]
 
Since 2008, the MHMS, with their development partners including Australia, has led a sector-wide approach (SWAp) to the delivery of health services in the Solomon Islands. The overall program goal for HSSP3 is to improve the access and quality of universal health care in the Solomon Islands. The current funding supports the Solomon Islands National Health Strategic Plan 2016-2020 and provides direct budget support, performance-linked funding and technical assistance.[vii]
 
What more can be done?
 
It is clear that Australia is doing its fair share for the Solomon Islands. There is now alignment in terms of ensuring best outcomes from this funding. This will certainly help build health services for this nation. But there is always more to do and GPs, in particular, can make a significant difference.
 
We need strategies to work through how best we can support our disadvantaged pacific neighbours from a community of GPs. Education partnerships being key and the RACGP already contributes in this way particularly in Papua New Guinea.
 
From my recent visit to the Solomon Islands, I have seen how the community there through their own resilience can achieve so much. Those working in Aboriginal Health would be familiar with what it takes to support patients in low-resource, laboratory-free settings. It would be great to share some of these learnings and provide more support for the Solomon Island communities.
 
[Ends]
 
[i] World Health Organisation. Article. Health closer to home: transforming care in the Solomon Islands. March 2017. Available at: http://www.who.int/features/2017/health-solomon-islands/en/
[ii]Westcott M, Martiniuk AL, Fowler RA, Adhikari NK, Dalipanda T. Critical care resources in the Solomon Islands: a cross-sectional survey. BMCInternationalHealthandHumanRights.Mar1,2012.doi:10.1186/1472-698X-12-1.Availableat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3307438/
[iii] ibid.
[iv] ibid.
[v]  ibid.
[vi] Commonwealth of Australia. Independent Performance Assessment. Solomon Islands – Health Sector Support Program. Specialist Health Service. May 29, 2017; revised 24 July 2017.
[vii] ibid.

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