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Amid calls for a fossil fuel treaty, the Pacific islands deal with significant public health challenges

Introduction by Croakey: Pacific island nations delivered a strong message to Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom during last week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa, demanding they commit to phasing out fossil fuel exports.

Tuvalu’s prime minister, Feleti Teo, told a press conference in Samoa’s capital Apia that the current policies of major polluters including Australia represented a “death sentence” for his country.

Meanwhile, the Pacific Islands experience a range of other health challenges, as highlighted below by Isabelle Zhu-Maguire, PhD candidate at the School of Regulation and Governance within the Australian National University.


Isabelle Zhu-Maguire writes:

This month, the eyes of the world were on Samoa which is the first Pacific Nation to host a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Given the specific issues faced by the Pacific, Samoa’s CHOGM meeting saw many discussions about climate change, oceans, and health.

Coined the ‘Climate CHOGM’, neighbouring Commonwealth members including Tuvalu, Fiji and Vanuatu used the meeting to launch the latest Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative report. Notably, this latest report had a specific focus on fellow Commonwealth member Australia’s coal and gas industries.

Health was also a key discussion point of the conference with Queen Camilla referencing health and wellbeing prominently in her remarks.

A new report, ‘Ageing Well in the Commonwealth: A Roadmap for Healthy Ageing Across the Life Course’, was also launched at the meeting. It outlines key strategies on how to ensure wellness in all stages of life across the Commonwealth members, who comprise of 60 percent of the world’s population.

Below is a wrap of some of the other major public health stories from across the Pacific region from this month.

Surgical services in Fiji

Residents living on Fiji’s Vanua Levu Island were this month provided with “life-changing surgery”, supported by Aotearoa/New Zealand-based charity ‘Friends of Fiji Health’ and led by a Fijian-born doctor, Dr Imran Ali, based in Auckland.

Out of the two major islands in Fiji, Vanua Levu is the smaller of the two. It has a large population of 135,000 with most residents living in rural areas without access to substantial or affordable medical support.

The visiting medical team conducted 25 kidney and prostate cancer surgeries at Labasa Divisional Hospital. This was the 34th mission of this kind conducted by the charity and provided the surgical services at no cost to the patient – saving each patient NZ$20 000, according to RNZ Pacific.

Alongside the surgeries, half a million dollars’ worth of equipment was also donated to Labasa Hospital through Friends of Fiji Health.

These types of missions are common across the Pacific where proportionately large swathes of the population live in rural areas without access to surgical services.

It is also common practice that larger navies in the region – including the United States Navy – provide surgical services on their ships when docked at Pacific Islands.

Water access in Fiji and Vanuatu

This month, large parts of Fiji’s central division experienced disruptions to water services due to infrastructure upgrades – 360,000 Fijians living in the Suva-Nausori corridor saw cuts to their fresh water over three days.

The Fiji Sun reported that Parliament closed over the three days in efforts to ensure hygiene standards for parliamentarians. Schools remained open during the upgrade works with water supply trucks providing water where needed.

Many Pacific nations face significant challenges with access to fresh water for drinking and hygiene. This is often because of poor infrastructure and increasingly because of rising sea levels salinating water sources.

Also this month, 5,000 people on Vanuatu’s Pentecost Island have a new supply of clean water, as a result of Vanuatu-Australia Partnership. The Australian Government provided the new water pumps and pipes to the Pentecost Island community after much of the infrastructure was destroyed during Cyclone Lola in March of 2024.

A week prior to the opening of the new water system, the Island’s health centre was also re-opened, also supported by the Australian Government.

Vaping

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) – in the western Pacific Ocean – has seen an increase in the number of school children vaping, according to Mark Rabago in RNZ Pacific this month.

Rabago reports that individual schools have attempted to slow this trend by providing warnings to students and organising student-parent conferences. However, these attempts have not been successful, in part due to the increasingly discreet vape devices being hard to detect.

In the CNMI, the selling of e-cigarettes to people aged under 21 is prohibited and legislation states that smoking (and in extension, vaping) is “prohibited in government buildings or within 25 feet of any doorway to government facility, in public places, including, but not limited to, childcare facilities, schools, museums, restaurants, sports arenas, inside places of employment, within 25 feet of any person not smoking in outdoor places of employment, on public school property, and in a motor vehicle when person under age 18 is present”.

However, this has proved to not be enough to prevent under-age vaping in schools.

In other parts of the North Pacific, more stringent, government-led action has been taken to prevent young people vaping. In Palau, vapes were outlawed completely in March 2023. In Guam, similar legislation has been proposed that would see flavoured e-cigarette liquid banned from sale.

Gambling harms

Australian gambling ads are fuelling gambling addictions in Papua New Guinea (PNG), according to a recent ABC article.

According to the authors, Belinda Kora and Hugo Hodge, an economy around gambling has emerged in PNG with street vendors selling Australian gambling guides. They interviewed one gambler who explained she had spent between 6,000 – 8,000 kina (AU$2,000 — $3,000) on rugby league bets but has never won ‘big’.

The impact of gambling addictions is exacerbated in PNG where 40 percent of people live under the poverty line. And despite a ban on gambling TV ads, people including many children are still being exposed to gambling promotions through rebroadcasts.

This was particularly evident during the NRL grand final broadcast this month – which carried Australian gambling ads – and was likely watched by many millions across PNG.

With negotiations in play for PNG to join the NRL, concerns have been raised by Tim Costello, prominent anti-gambling advocate and chair of Community Council for Australia, about the potential harmful impact of Australia’s gambling ads on the country.

Costello told the ABC he was worried that betting firms could gain further access to at-risk communities if a PNG team debuts in the competition.

“Put gambling and NRL together in PNG and the Pacific — far greater poverty, far greater losses, far greater suicides, domestic violence and crime,” he said.

Conflict in Papua New Guinea

One of the greatest health concerns in Papua New Guinea is the persistent violence that occurs, for various reasons – particularly in the Enga Highlands.

On 15 October, PNG security forces shot six people – killing one – after illegal miners protested their expulsion from the Porgera Goldmine in the country’s Enga Highlands. The mine was temporarily shut down because of fuel shortages caused by an illegal roadblock. 62 people were arrested during this bout of violence.

Later in the month, a bus attack occurred, also in the Enga Highlands of Papua New Guinea, leaving an unreported number of people dead and wounded. RNZ Pacific reported that the attack was likely related to the aforementioned arrests made at the mine site.

This violence is only the latest is a series of ongoing ‘tribal-based’ conflicts in this region of Papua New Guinea. In February this year, 26 people were killed as a result of gun violence which led to the United Nations’ Human Rights Office urging the PNG Government to do more to end the violence.

As a result of the ongoing conflict in the Enga Highlands, the PNG Government has extended the state of emergency it has declared over the region, which will continue to allow security forces to make increased arrests where deemed necessary.

About the author

Isabelle Zhu-Maguire is a PhD candidate at the School of Regulation and Governance within the Australian National University. Her thesis investigates the ways in which Australia listens and responds to the climate advocacy of Pacific Island Nations.

She has conducted extensive research into the experiences of women in Afghanistan and their perspectives and realities living through conflict, oppression, and climate change.

Isabelle has also been advocate for greater youth inclusion within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.


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