Nurses need continuous education to upgrade their skills so they deliver quality health services.
This is part of the Health Ministry’s commitment to improve service delivery as outlined in Pillar 10 of the People’s Charter for Change, Peace and Progress.
There are 205 health facilities in Fiji with 103 nursing stations, 78 health centres and three divisional hospitals.
A Need-Based In-Service Training (NB-IST) for community health nurses is being held for nurses of Tonga, Vanuatu and Fiji.
The NB-IST is part of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Ministry of Health implementation developed as a model for the Central Division in 2004 and 2008.
Fiji aims to adopt the model on a national scale and together with its regional counter-parts, strengthen community health nursing.
The regional team visited the sub-divisional nursing stations last week to witness the processes of work culture at the various health stations.
Thirty-three-year-old district nurse for Verata Nursing Station, Mrs Arieta Turaganivalu said for a population of 3014, more staff were needed to do community and management work.
She is handling both at the moment.
“We have clinics for mothers only on Thursdays, while the rest of the days, I go out to the villages for community visits,” Mrs Turaganivalu said.
Verata has 10 villages and seven settlements and common illnesses found in the community are mostly viral illness, Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, malnutrition and gastroenteritis.
Mrs Turaganivalu said her community visits included bookings for the anti-natal mothers, screening for NCDs, follow up on immunization and Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) clinics and awareness.
Some of the difficulties faced by the district nurse are transportation and water problems.
The district nurse is grateful for JICA and the ministry for visiting the nursing stations to show the processes involved in delivering quality health services to rural communities.
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