More than 20 of Pacific health officials have gathered in Nadi, Fiji for the 16th Pacific Heads of Health (PHoH) Meeting this week between 28th to 30th April 2025.
The Pacific Heads of Health Meeting, an annual event, brings together leaders of health ministries from Pacific Islands countries and territories annually to discuss issues that affect the health of pacific islanders. The main objective of this year’s meeting is to review and discuss issues raised at the 15th Pacific Heads of Health meeting held in Samoa in April 2024 and to prepare recommendations for Pacific Health Ministers Meeting that will take place in Samoa in September 2025.
Representing the Solomon Islands, Ministry of Health and Medical Services, are Deputy Secretary Health Care Dr Gregory Jilini, and the Director Planning and Policy, Mr. Brian Idufanoa.
Some of the topics discussed include the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent and the review of the regional health architecture; Healthy Islands vision 2050; commercial determinants of health in the Pacific; mental health, drugs and substance abuse; measles and rubella elimination in the Pacific region and digital health. Recommendations from these discussions will be submitted for deliberation at the ministerial meeting later this year.
Director Planning and Policy, Mr Brian Idufanoa highlighted that the Pacific Heads of Health meeting is an important annual meeting as it provides an avenue and platform where all our Pacific neighbouring countries in the health sector along with key development partners and technical health specialists can sit down and not only review the progress of all the recommendations, collaborative commitments, efforts and previous meeting held in Samoa in April 2024, but also to learn from other neighbouring countries in terms of their progress, approach, best practices and implementation arrangements where Solomon Islands can leverage. More significantly, discussions were also around findings and researches on current health interventions around the pacific as well as regionally. This is important as it will inform Solomon Islands health policies and interventions.
“Additionally, Solomon Islands is part of a regional community where a lot of our health indicators are cross cutting, require regional support, coordination and engagement. This includes health security, public health threats, emergency and response systems, surveillance and commercial health determinants as a major concern for NCD in the Solomon Islands. The meeting is also important as it will set the discussions in preparation for the upcoming Ministerial meeting that will be held later this year in Samoa,” said Mr Idufanoa.
Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary Health Care Dr Gregory Jilini stated, “Solomon Islands is part of the regional and global family, our health is interconnected through movements of people and goods across national borders. For Pacific Islands countries and territories, we share a common ocean with common challenges so it is important for Pacific Islands countries to collaborate with each other and our partners on matters that affect our people’s health in the region”.
Heads of health in all pacific Island countries including Australia and New Zealand were part of the meeting. Other donor partners also attended the meeting including WHO, SPC, UNFPA, USP, UNICEF, Youth organisational representatives and other key donor partners.
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