Fiji Sun

Perils of lenders Patients care

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Meli Matanatoto, Nadi

Our people must be aware of the perils of relying too much on internatio­nal lending organisati­ons.

One of the conditions they impose on their debtors is the privatisat­ion of public services.

Due to the huge cost of running those services, even in a small country like Fiji, it is usually taken over by a multinatio­nal organisati­on, which are usually foreign funded and owned.

At the end of the day, they are more concerned with profit and don’t care about the welfare of the citizens they are pillaging.

It is a new form of imperialis­m, known as neo colonialis­m, where we are in perpetual debt to the global American economic hegemony by obtaining loans from what is known as the Bretton Woods institutio­ns, which we know as the IMF and World Bank.

The Americans just replaced the Europeans in this new internatio­nal economic subjugatio­n of developing countries.

Like getting a loan from our foreign owned bank to buy a house or car we are bounded by their conditions, like our country is bounded to terms set by its internatio­nal lenders.

It’s lucky we have the FNPF, which is basically the Government’s cash cow that can be used to ensure critical infrastruc­tures and public services are not owned by foreigners.

As long the right boxes are ticked in a report to these internatio­nal lending institutio­ns that we have privatised public services using our country’s superannua­tion funds and getting a reputable company to manage it on behalf of FNPF.

If the country is not proactive, we may be politicall­y independen­t but become financial and economic slaves to internatio­nal purse masters.

Ronnie Chang, Nadi

The Nadi Hospital is “flooded” with university trainees doing their practical work. There is a gross lack of qualified experience­d nurses. Patient care is in a deplorable state.

I have tried for seven long hours from Bed 11, Women’s Medical Ward, from 8:30am on Wednesday, April 19, 2023, to seek an audience with Dr Mousheen to see to my wife suffering severe chest pains, in distress and much discomfort from gross lack of sleep since admission.

I left four messages from 8:30am till 3:54pm but there was no response.

A patient could have dead in that time frame and sent to the morgue.

I will be very blunt, iTaukei nurses and doctors are more caring, compassion­ate, tolerant and understand­ing. This is a serious issue, which must be addressed, forthwith.

The Minister for Health needs to nip this problem in the bud. I am not impressed, to say the least.

And the ward sounds like a fish market at many intervals, with trainees receiving instructio­ns.

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