This program has allowed over 162 Pacific Islanders to undertake a short term intensive study on reproductive health.
This program is currently addressing an urgent need for trained health care staff who will contribute to making motherhood safer, providing prevention and treatment services for HIV and STIs and creating innovative solutions to the health challenges faced by the region.
This year the Fiji School of Medicine will begin offering a longer and more comprehensive semester long course with a new name — Certificate in Sexual and Reproductive Health Management.
This course is now open to anyone enrolling for studies at the Fiji School of Medicine; and each year UNFPA through its program will continue to offer governments fully funded training scholarships for sixteen people from the region.
“We have among us people who are unable to afford or access the existing health services,” said Dr. Annette Sachs Robertson, UNFPA representative and director, Pacific Sub-Regional Office.
“We need reproductive health programs to be innovative and provide quality reproductive health services to our most vulnerable and needy groups. The Pacific has some of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the world. As STI surveys have revealed, some Pacific Island countries have the highest rates of Chlamydia. Furthermore, maternal deaths are persisting in some countries — avoidable deaths from the natural process of child birth which represent a failure of the health care system and a failure of society to protect their mothers – the deeper root cause is often gender inequity.”
Robertson said that it is from the evidence provided by simple enquiry, operations research or larger surveys or censuses, that we can determine our most vulnerable groups and the most important problems that need addressing.
“A review of the program was carried out last year which found that the program could benefit other health care workers interested in specialist public health and clinical practice in sexual and reproductive health. It also found that the previously offered 11 week course was too intensive and could be further improved if it was delivered over a full semester period (17 weeks). We are very pleased and thank the Fiji School of Medicine for taking these suggestions on board and for the dedication of its team in delivering an excellent program,” said Dr Robertson.
Since 1999, the Reproductive Health Training Program has assisted middle-level health professionals from 10 Pacific Island Countries (Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu) to improve their clinical and public health management in reproductive health. It has inspired and motivated graduates to initiate and sustain national programs in reproductive health, adolescent health and development, male involvement in Reproductive Health and family planning. Some of these programs that were initiated by graduates of the Reproductive Health Training Program, such as the Male in Reproductive Health program in the Solomon Islands, have become models for other countries and are being expanded nationally as well. Graduates of these programs have become directors of reproductive health and coordinators of adolescent health and development and STIs/HIV. They have provided reproductive health services for vulnerable groups in their societies and affected several thousands of people.
