Shania Shayal Prasad 
Belinda Chan
The shortage of medical staff has caused delays in carrying out surgeries for cancer patients.
The Fiji Cancer Society says the Ministry of Health continues to identify the backlog of surgeries that need to be carried out after assessing their health status.
Chief Executive Belinda Chan says that the operating team prioritizes patients who need urgent surgeries and reschedules those that need to be done at a later date.
She states that a lot more cases are on the waiting list; however, they have to consider the psychological and physical health of patients and the availability of operating teams.
“I know next week there are three women scheduled, so it depends on how long the surgery takes. And we work closely with the team that’s actually doing the surgery. And then they tell us; they give us an estimate. In some cases, when they do say two, sometimes they actually just do one because they don’t have the time to do the second one because complications may have arisen.”
Chan says that increasing the healthcare workforce will help fast-track the surgeries.
Minister for Health Doctor Atonio Lalabalavu says the attrition of nurses is hindering their outreach programs.
“So one is awareness, and the second is doing more of this outreach program so that we screen and refer them back here. In that way, we believe that we can have early detection and early treatment. But part of this hindrance to achieving a good outreach program is the attrition of nurses.”
More backlog surgeries are expected to be carried out in the coming days.
