Photo Caption: Solomon Islands Health Minister, Honorable Dr Paul Bosawai together with WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a brief meeting in Geneva, Switzerland
On the last day of the 78th World Health Assembly, Tuesday 27th May 2025, the Solomon Islands Health Delegation led by the Minister of Health and Medical Services had the opportunity to pay a courtesy call and had a brief bilateral dialogue with Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Despite his very busy schedule during the World Health Assembly accompanied with the may side events and numerous bilateral meetings that he had had over the last nine days, the WHO Director General made time to meet with the Solomon Islands Delegation upon which the MHMS was grateful for.
At the bilateral meeting, the Honourable Health Minister, Dr Paul Bosawai commended the Director General for his wisdom and strong leadership in steering the WHO through its most challenging times in its history with the recent COVID-19 Pandemic and current geopolitics which threatens multilateralism and its effect on the funding landscape. Health Minister, further congratulated the Director General for a successful 78th World Health Assembly particularly on the achievement of key outcomes of the Assembly which are the adoption of the Pandemic Treaty and the adoption of the Program Budget for the biennium 2026 – 2027.
On his brief discussions with the Director General and particularly on health systems, the Health Minister highlighted 4 key priorities during the bilateral meeting which included: Health Infrastructure Investment, Health Workforce, Supply Chain Management and Health Governance.
On health infrastructure investment the Minister highlighted that “Most health care services are facility based. Health workers like nurses deliver services in hospitals and clinics, which are the first point of care for the sick. This is why having well designed, fit for purpose and climate resilient health facilities are important. Lack of proper regulation in establishment of new health facilities coupled with inadequate budgetary support for repair and maintenance has resulted in uncontrolled growth in the number of health facilities which deteriorate rapidly due to wear to tear”.
On Health workforce, Health Minister briefly touched on the fact that “Posting of health workers to the provinces, especially outside urban centres has been challenging due to limited accommodation and where the health workers partners work in the national or provincial capital. To address the HR gap in the rural areas and service delivery at the community level, we are now exploring investing in community health workers. We are already discussing this with the World Bank to undertake a study to design the programme”
Health Minister further highlighted that “”the other gap we have is on specialised training for doctors and nurses. For doctors’ specialist trainings are available through medical schools in Fiji and PNG however there is now a growing need for subspecialist training to help reduce the need for overseas referrals or visiting medical teams. Specialist training for nurses has only been available for eye care programme and opportunities for nurse training in other specialist areas has been lacking”
The delegation also highlighted that like many of the Pacific Island countries, Solomon Islands, faces looming threats posed by NCDs, mental health conditions, climate change and malaria and as such the health sector is overwhelmingly vulnerable to such threats, thus stretching and burdening the health financing landscape and health systems.
The Director General welcomed the Honourable Health Minister Dr Paul Bosawai, and congratulated him on his membership to the Executive Board to WHO. Director General assured the Minister and his delegation of World Health Organization’s ongoing support and engagement in strengthening health systems in the country and was supportive on the policy direction on community health that the Ministry was embarking on.
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