A two day workshop on 'Making Hospital Safe from Disaster' at the Kirakira hospital in Makira and Ulawa Province was described as eye opening and successful.
Director of Nursing, Steven Waketaku said the workshop has taught a lot of useful lessons to the participants and they are now determined to develop an evacuation plan for the hospital.Mr Waketaku said that the workshop was timely because soon the hospital will be relocated to Huro, near the airport in the very near future and alot of ideas from the workshop will be useful both for the relocation and the current location of the hospital.
"This has been the first time for us to learn about the many risks we work with everyday at the hospital. Participants also learned about how to identify weaknesses in the structure as well as developing an evacuation plan," he said.
Mr Julian Maka'a, one of the workshop facilitator told Solomon Times that participants have agreed that they are determined to complete their evacuation plan within the next three weeks before the Pacific wide Tsunami exercise to be conducted at the end of this month.
"They also agreed to conduct drills every two months to ensure every member of their evacuation committee and other partners understand their roles and responsibilities," Mr Makaa said.
The two-day workshop was one of four such workshops organized by the National Disaster Management Office and other partners to mark the International Day for Disaster Reduction day, this week.
Hospitals in Gizo, Honiara and Kira Kira were the only hospitals to have conducted the trainings. The Kilu'ufi hospital was unable to, due to a large number of their senior staff attending various health workshops in Honiara this week.
The workshops in the Provinces are funded by the National Government with support from Oxfam and Red Cross.