Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly: Pacific address

Let me bring warm greetings from the blue continent countries, namely: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Mr President, the Pacific Island nations are small, but span and occupy wide and immense Pacific Ocean with vast isolation among them and from the rest of the world. This however, does not provide immunity to global challenges and common health epidemics that are affecting its population. Our population ranges from only about 2,000 in small Pacific Island countries to over 5 million in the largest country.

Most of us have relatively poor economic base but all have a strong desire for better health. This effort has been stretched with the effects of climate change.

Mr President, the Pacific Island Nations are small island nations in the world, very vulnerable to global warming and rising sea level, which according to scientific evidence, will make our small countries submerge under seawater in the next 50 years.

Mr President, climate change and our environmental vulnerability creates a double burden on the NCD crisis, the rapid increasing in population, challenging maternal and child health issues and the high burden of communicable diseases. Some of our countries have faced detrimental effects of natural disasters which may be beyond many countries' control.

We the Pacific Island countries are still undergoing rapid changes in health pattern and trends. Most are experiencing a rapid rise in non-communicable diseases, an indication of having gone through the epidemiological transition. Others are still struggling with infectious diseases but at the same time witnessing an increase in the incidences of diabetes, hypertension and cancers. It goes without saying that these disease patterns are part and parcel of development and we have put great emphasis on health education and health promotion as a means to address these emerging health problems.

Mr President, most Pacific Island nations suffer from chronic shortage of highly trained health personnel such as doctors and health allied professionals. The shift to South American and Asian medical institutes has been a lucrative and attractive offer to most of the pacific islands to fill in the shortage gap. Nonetheless, this has caused human resource issues and challenges.

Mr President, through the support of our WHO Western Pacific Regional Office and assistance from various bilateral and regional organizations, the concept of "healthy islands" have become the strategy framework to address a number of our unique Pacific Islands health problems including non communicable diseases. PEN program is one example of another successful Primary health care strategy.

Let me remind you that this does not take away the importance of high endemic of infectious diseases. Our countries are still faced with high TB, HIV, malaria prevalence. But let me further add, and I am sure you will agree with me that we still need assistance to tackle all these important global health epidemics.

Mr President, the future of any nation lies in its young population. We in the Pacific are no exception. With our young and youthful population structure there is a tendency that the needs of these section of the population may not be adequately addressed or forgotten completely in our quest for rapid economic development and misguided priorities.

We pride ourselves as a region with rich and diverse culture. We need to work extra hard as a region to improve health indicators even further in line with our national goals as well as the MDGs in 2015. 2015 should not be seen as a finishing line but rather a year of preplanning for the next global health goals

Mr President, Pacific island nations are currently undergoing health reforms at various levels, identifying health needs in a more focused manner and allowing for more participation from civil society and the community to participate more actively and respond more positively to those needs.

We are also increasingly recognizing and acknowledging positive contribution out of consultation among ourselves at the regional level. This assembly is one avenue where we believe various key health issues could be discussed in a concerned manner, and from which each government will exit with a good knowledge of addressing global health issues in a collaborative and effective way.

We gather here as one family in the name of better health for the people of the world and we should not lose sight of the fact that collective approach and consultation makes our work easier. We, as Pacific Island nations are proud as a Pacific family to be members of WHO and of this global family.

Mr President, on that note and as my concluding remarks, I would like to take this golden opportunity to thank the Director-General of WHO, Madam, Dr Margaret Chan for her excellent leadership on the global health frontier and her clear vision and focus on key health issues that are common to all of us.

We, the Pacific Island nations extend to you our strong support in leading this organization to greater things to come.

On the regional level Mr President we would like to acknowledge with sincere and profound appreciation the outstanding leadership that our Regional Director Dr Shin Young-soo has demonstrated throughout his term of office until now. Under his guidance and foresight we will certainly get the job done according to our expectation and to the satisfaction of the people of the Pacific Island nations.