Friends, the statistics are not good. In fact, they are very
troubling. The state of health in the Pacific is poor. There are a myriad of
reasons, but the primary two are lack of investment in health care services by
government, and personal choices.
Before we talk about health care in terms of aid, let’s
first address the issue of personal choice. For most countries, there is
sufficient locally grown and produced healthy food to provide for adequate
balanced diets. At times, cyclones and flooding and drought interrupt the food
production process, and climate change is interfering with those processes,
particularly in atoll countries, but for the most part, we’re still in a
situation where we can grow our own food - enough to feed our families and sell
the remainder at the market in order to have cash income to buy other
necessities.
