Medical professionals need to be paid more to be retained – Fiscal Review Committee

Medical professionals at all levels will need to be paid more if they are to be retained.

This is a recommendation of the Fiscal Review Committee Report that states that only 2,500 of 3,400 nursing positions are filled with a “pipeline” of new graduate nurses amounting to a little over 200 nurses a year.

The report says health appears to have suffered from long-term under-investment, including in preventative medicine, and Fiji is now paying the price.

It also recommends that investment in human capital needs to be matched by investment in physical capital.

The report also says the Ministry believes that the majority of its facilities need significant physical upgrading.

It says these are health facilities and cleanliness is a professional, not just optical, necessity.

The report also says power, water and online connectivity must be available and staff quarters acceptable.

The Committee recommends that there is a critical (life and death) need for Health Ministry assets, including buildings, basic infrastructure such as utilities, lifts, laundries and incinerators and highly sensitive medical equipment to be organized into a scheduled maintenance programme to ensure they serve their full intended useful life and that funds are available for scheduled maintenance, not ad hoc maintenance when they break down.

It adds the Ministry has a total of 212 facilities, made up of two divisional hospitals (CWM and Labasa), two specialised hospitals (St Giles Hospital and Tamavua/Twomey Hospital – both in Suva), 19 sub-divisional hospitals, 89 health centres and 100 nursing stations.

The report says a majority of health centres and nursing stations need renovation with significant capital works identified for CWM (Maternity), Savusavu and Labasa Hospitals.

It says the Ministry is only now trying to get better oversight of maintenance needs.

The report adds the Ministry generally underspends on its capital expenditure allocations because it does not have the resources to better organise its capital expenditure needs.