BY SAMIE WAIKORI
Auki
A two-day training on civil registration and vital statistics especially on verbal autopsy ends on 8th May in Auki.
The training is part of a project under WHO which has been carried out in the country since 2016.
Data for Health Country Coordinator of WHO, Mr Rodley Ruskin said the project aims to improve civil registration and vital statistics in the country.
He explained that civil registration and vital statistics covers areas on vital image of death and birth.
“This is to collect data on births and deaths in the country and also to improve registration.
“At the same the vital statistic part of it is to improve data to produce report where work can focus on its outcomes.
“For example, upon data collected especially on deaths in the country, we identify diseases leading to the death where it helps us to work on the disease,” Ruskin said.
He said the focus of the project for Solomon Islands is on collecting data on death.
“Last year we did training under the project for doctors across the country for certifying diseases resulted in deaths in the hospitals.
“Thus, we see a need to go right to rural areas with the project since big percent of deaths occur outside of hospitals.
“So this year we did verbal autopsy with the focus of certifying deaths happen outside of hospitals where sometimes happen in clinics or homes,” he said.
Ruskin said with this verbal autopsy method rural health practitioners can take probable cause of death (which is the disease) and enter them in the database for analysis.
“So the training now is to train rural health practitioners to understand how to use tablets with process require entering the data on deaths,” he said.
Ruskin said 15 health practitioners from across Malaita province are attending the training.
He said the training is facilitated by WHO and funded by Bloomberg Data for Institute and DFAT.
