Four Japanese volunteers who have spent two years in the country have completed their assignment and will leave the country early next month.
They are Masayuki Iino, Yasuko Chiba, Ai Tanabe and Toshiaki Kono.
The four came into the country in 2013 under Japanese International cooperation Agency (JICA) and spent their time teaching and helping various sectors in the country to promote health programs.
Two of them, Ms Yasuko Chiba and Masayuki Iino spent their whole time in the provinces working as health officer and teacher.
Ms Chiba is a registered nurse working in Buala and Kirakira Hospitals, improve surrounding and inside the environment of the hospital while Mr Iino served as a mathematics and science teacher at Arnon Atomea community high school in North Malaita.
Speaking to this paper in an interview Ms Chiba said, Kirakira and Buala hospitals need a lot of improve in terms of water supply and waste management.
“Kirakira had serious water and rubbish problem for a long time and I had to address those problems by providing safe services to the patients and make sure the safety of all hospital staff,” Ms chiba said.
“Hope as time goes on, this problem will be fixed to the standard where people will live happily and healthy.”
Mr Iino said teaching in Arnon Atomea was very interesting because students are keen to learn and work closely with their teachers.
During this time there Mr Iino was able to promote table tennis and a science project.
He said, the purpose of introducing this sport is because students only play volley ball and soccer.
He added now students and staff can play table tennis.
Another volunteer Ai Tanabe who works with the Honiara city council health department said, they believe that what they have delivered here in Solomon Islands is very important and helpful to the people.
“Since working as a program officer for Vector Borne Control Program VBCP in Honiara City Council, I was very happy and proud to work with Solomon Islanders to help combat infectious diseases in the national health development plans.
“Following this, I was very happy to see that our team is working very hard gaining achievement of HCC Vector Borne Disease Control program for 2013-2014.”
According to the 2013-2014 records there was over 45% reduction on malaria rate in Honiara which means there is a 20% reduction in 2013 and 25 %( reduction) in 2014 being achieved.
“So Honiara no longer has the highest Malaria incident rate in the nation.”
In 2013-14, HCC VBDCP distributed over 61,000 long-lasting insecticide treated nets to Honiara residents. That is equivalent to one net per 1.5 people.
In close collaboration with VBDCP office at Guadalcanal provinces, in 2014 HCC VBDCP conducted mosquito net distribution and house spraying for every household along the borderline.
And recently launch HCC website and VBDCP’s page offer information on symptoms, treatment, and prevention for malaria and dengue.
For the past years the Ministry of health has focused on the measure to combat infectious disease in the National Health development plans, and has made malaria control a top priority.
Speaking on behalf of the group, 68 years old volunteer Toshiaki Kono who worked as an engineer for the Solomon Islands National referral hospital acknowledged people of Solomon islands for the kindness and working together during their two years here in the country.
He said, Solomon Islands is small beautiful country, people respect each other compared to other places he visited.
“We believe that what we done in this country will help people in many ways, hope that Solomon Islands will become a developed country in the future.”
Most of them said, they will remember Solomon Islands upon their return.
By SOLOMON LOFANA
