NGO raises plight of rural dwellers
HIGH numbers of dengue, leptospirosis and typhoid cases, lack of beds in hospitals and people unable to afford basic medicine are some of the many issues being faced by rural dwellers.
This was the word from Laisa Bulatale, a research officer at the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement.
She made the comment during a webinar titled Talanoa with Minister organised by Dialogue Fiji and funded by the European Union recently.
“FWRM is part of a CSO alliance for COVID-19 humanitarian response,” she said.
“And we are among eight other grassroots organisations working on the humanitarian front of COVID-19.
“Some of the initial findings from local communities and villages is high cases of non-communicable diseases, typhoid, leptospirosis, insufficient beds in hospitals and some people not being able to afford basic medication.”
Ms Bulatale said while Government should be commended for the successful containment of COVID-19, it had to ensure non-COVID-19 issues were also addressed.
In response, Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete said Government had put in place measures to ensure “normative functions” continued.
“When Lautoka went into lockdown, to be able to meet the high-end operational need outside of the Lautoka area, we created hospitals in Sigatoka and Rakiraki,” he said.
“So we had teams there, we had surgical capability to be able to do emergency caesarean sections, to be able to do operations, see children who were sick, to be able to intubate and ventilate somebody who is a severe asthmatic who otherwise can’t go into Nadi or Lautoka.”