Cancer Patients Facing Delays Due to Bed Shortage

Cancer patients are facing life-threatening delays due to hospital bed shortages, a community leader warned during a National Budget forum.

Mereoni Marama Taginadavui, a breast cancer survivor and community worker from Bua, highlighted the critical situation affecting cancer care at Colonial War Memorial (CWM) Hospital.

"There's lack of beds in hospitals, and therefore most of our cancer patients do wait.

"And for cancer, it's not an easy disease to be kept in waiting because of the multiplication of cancer cells," she said during Dialogue Fiji National Budget Forum in Suva on Thursday.

Ms Taginadavui, who has survived breast cancer for 2 5 years, said patients often deteriorate while waiting for available beds.

"By the time there's a bed available, she or he may be closer to dying."

"And so as our children, they would probably be closer to dying, and there's not a lot that could be done to them," she said.

She shared her personal experience when her husband was diagnosed with colon cancer last year, requiring a colonoscopy at CWM Hospital.

Mereoni Marama Taginadavui.

"By the time we got to the hospital, it was about December, we could not go through a colonoscopy in CWM Hospital because they were closed from the 20th of December, and then open again 10th of February," she said.

The family had to seek private healthcare, which Ms Taginadavui noted was not accessible to everyone.

Finance Minister Biman Prasad acknowledged the health system challenges, referencing a World Bank review that found Fiji's health outcomes in recent decades had declined compared to earlier periods.

"Our health outcomes in the 70s, 80s, and 90s were better than the health outcomes that we've had in the last 20 years," Mr Prasad said.

He said the Government has allocated significant funding for health infrastructure improvements, including CWM Hospital upgrades and plans for a new national hospital.

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