Medical team visits Solomon Islands, forms relationship with sister hospital

This article was written by Shih Ying-ying and published by the Taiwan Journal on January 13, 2006. It reports that a team of medical personnel from Taiwan's Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital recently went to the Solomon Islands to provide advice and to sign a "sisterhood agreement" with Solomon's National Referral Hospital.

The trip was sponsored by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Health, as part of an initiative to strengthening Taiwan's relations with its six allies in the South Pacific. Medical teams from six hospitals in Taiwan will travel to their affiliated institutes in these six South Pacific countries to help improve their medical services.

In addition to providing medical assistance, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also working with the Institute for Information Industry and the International Cooperation and Development Fund to collect 1,000 computers for delivery to Taiwan's six allies in the South Pacific. The plan is to provide the computers free to the region's poor.

Sir Allan Kemakeza, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, said the establishment of the sister relationship between Taiwan's Kaohsiung Medical University and Solomon's National Referral Hospital was a big step forward in Solomon's health and medical sector.

As part of the new sister hospital project, more than US$500,000 worth of medical equipment was delivered to the Solomon Islands, including a new medical ultrasound imaging apparatus and two machines to help dental hygienists scale calculus.