19 May 2016

Tonga's head of health says nurses exceed expectation

7:58 pm on 19 May 2016

The Director of Health in Tonga says nurses are doing a great job despite an earlier report that 70 percent had not reached national professional standards.

Siale 'Akau'ola says the figure provided by the Chief of Nursing referred to a 2013 survey

conducted to see how capacity building could improve.

Dr 'Akau'ola says it focused on aspects such as hours worked or mentoring and training opportunities.

He says there has been a major improvement and now only about 5 percent of nurses require assistance to lift standards.

"The quality of nurses we have, their professionalism, their expertise, their skills, exceeds our expectations already at this point in time so we are pretty happy with what they are doing to the public in Tonga."

Dr Siale 'Akau'ola.

There are around 300 nurses in Tonga.