Page 8 - IB Dec 2020

Pacific People of the Year Pacific People of the Year

Samoan health and other frontline workers at Faleolo International Airport to meet and screen returning Samoans. Fiji Prime Miniser Voreqe Bainimarama and health workers at the unveiling of a monument marking the country’s 50th
Photo: Government of Samoa anniversary of independence. Photo: Fiji Government

HONOURING OUR HEALTH

FRONTLINERS

By Samantha Magick In some Pacific states and territories, tions for health workers, making sure
health workers also represent a sig- there are a lot of scholarships avail-
When Marnette Aggabao died from nificant number of patients. 60 Guam able…That coupled with the fact that
apparent COVID-19 related complica- Memorial Hospital staffers had tested there has been sufficient renumeration
tions in Guam recently, she joined a positive for COVID-19 from the start of of doctors and other staff in the minis-
tragic tally of health workers all over the pandemic to October. In Papua New try of health have actually prepared us
the world who have died during the Guinea, a large number of healthcare really well for the challenges we have
pandemic. workers who had been stationed at a faced this year and they’ve been able
Aggabao, a 62-year-old registered COVID-19 testing lab were exposed, and to answer the call and in some cases,
nurse originally from the Philippines, their family members along with them. above and beyond what is expected.”
was admitted to hospital for other Prime Minister James Marape ordered Fiji has not had a case of community
medical problems and with a COVID di- an inquiry, saying: “All healthcare work- transmission in more than 200 days.
agnosis. She spent more than six weeks ers are supposed to be equipped and all Even so, Dr Waqainabete says there is
there before she died. health facilities have been supplied with a way to go. “There’s still a lot of work
Local media quoted her friends as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). that needs to be done, a lot of recruit-
saying Aggabao had talked of retiring, Something went wrong somewhere.” ment that needs to be done, we’re not
but “then this thing happened.” But in most Pacific nations, health there yet but this year, I think we did
This ‘thing’ is COVID-19, and the workers have escaped infection through very well.”
response of our health frontliners in the application of strict protocols in- In the Solomon Islands it has been a
working so hard to treat COVID patients, cluding the donning of PPE. different story. After a long period of
test and screen many of us, undertake “I think our healthcare workers being COVID free, the country regis-
contact tracing, communicate new have done very, very well,” says Fiji’s tered a handful of COVID-cases at its
behaviours (extended hand washing, health minister Dr Ifereimi Waqaina- borders as it brought Solomon Island-
sanitiser user, social distancing), and bete. “They’ve actually shown what ers home from their studies and work
deliver usual health services—all in the I’ve known all along. What has actually abroad.
face of their own fears and exhaustion— worked in our favour is that over the This has exposed fractures within the
is why they are our Pacific People of the last few years the government has actu- health system. Conflict between health
Year. ally invested a lot in opening more posi- workers and government escalated,

8 Islands Business, December 2020