The healthcare infrastructure in Region Nine continues to advance with the commissioning of the Shulinab doctor’s quarters and its satellite village – Meriwau’s upgraded health post on Saturday.
The doctor’s quarters was built following a request made by the toshao for a doctor to be stationed in the village. When the building is fully furnished, the doctor will be deployed to the village.
During the commissioning ceremony, Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony noted that the government is placing focus on ensuring medical personnel are properly housed to serve the community, as well as increasing the services offered at these facilities.
“This building that you have cost the government about $7 million. So, you have a good facility…you will see the quality of work that we have here. We want to encourage people who are going to be working in the health sector that when they come to work with us, they will have a good environment and good working conditions. That is one of the reasons why we have built this facility,” Dr Anthony explained.
Shulinab’s health centre is also expected to benefit from internet connectivity that will allow telemedicine capabilities. The minister also informed residents that upgrades are also being conducted to various hospitals in the region and urged young people to challenge themselves and make use of the various training opportunities being offered by the ministry.
“We’ll train them and if we don’t have enough jobs for them in the village, I am sure we can find jobs for them in other parts of the region. So identify those young people. We didn’t send them to secondary school to just get a number of subjects and then they remain unemployed … in the health sector, we can employ a lot of people” he urged.
Meanwhile, Regional Health Officer (RHO), Dr Cerdel McWatt expressed that Shulinab is on its way to achieving universal health, as it is slated for holistic upgrades under the regional health services budget.
At Meriwau, a $9 million health facility was commissioned after it underwent major upgrades over the last two years. Last year, with $4 million in funding, the roof and the building were upgraded and with an additional $5 million funding this year, a sanitary block and a hybrid solar system were installed.
Hinterland Coordinator, Michael Gouveia and Regional Chairman, Brian Allicock joined the minister in the commissioning exercise at both locations.