BY MAVIS NISHIMURA PODOKOLO
WHILST the country is battling to stop the entry of the coronavirus-19 (COVID19) the Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) currently received by the Ministry of Health and Medical Services is still not enough.
This was revealed by Pauline McNeil, Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS), during a recent talkback show on covid-19 at the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation in Honiara (SIBC).
“Right now, we have received the Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) but I don’t think it is enough yet,” said McNeil.
“We still mobilising and communicating with our partners and using our current budget to procure additional so we can move these PPEs to our nine provinces but at the same time to also preposition the PPEs in Honiara as an entry point but also to in Gizo, Shortland’s so these are the places that we need to preposition our suppliers to.
“The challenge would be securing the warehouses in the provinces and therefore will have budgetary implications on it as well but we working around it to ensure the PPE suppliers are propositioned well in advanced before we have a case,” said McNeil.
On this matter Minister for Health Dickson Mua said new PPEs have arrived in Solomon Islands and more are due to arrive soon.
Mua said to get these supplies into a pre-positioning location across the country is the ministry’s next priority.
