The Ministry of Health and Medical Services would be taking in 150 doctors, 200 nurses and 143 allied staff in 2015, says the Minister Jone Usamate.

This is to help minimise the waiting time for patients in health facilities across the country.

He said staffing was now being managed.

“One of the issues that have become apparent is that waiting times often happen at specific times, so as many clinical staff as possible has been programmed to be available at those specific times.

“For instance we know that many people turn up on Monday mornings, so we arrange as many clinical staff as possible to be available at those times.

“The staffing has been managed so that clinical staff are available when the demand is highest,” he said.

He also said the load for doctors in many of the health facilities were still very high and they even had doctors who were seeing up to 90 patients a day.

“We have committed to work towards the ratio of one doctor for every 1000 people in Fiji, and this is something we will work towards over the next few years.

“Pharmacy opening hours in Valelevu and Makoi have been extended and we will look to extend these in other areas. This however, will depend on the availability of staff to man pharmacies.”

Mr Usamate said in the meantime, they intended to focus on primary health and preventive health so that people could do things to make sure they did not get sick in the first place.

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