Transcript
SAM YOCKOPUA: We've had issues of continually, frequently running short of basic medicines and consumables. We've had issues of sometimes money not being sorted out on time when officers transfer from one place to another, or new recruits; and many more countless issues. But when the normal bureaucratic mechanism is not working, there has got to be alternative ways of addressing the issues. If they are controlling the normal bureaucratic mechanism, they should let the other ways of source of information be allowed to flow and flourish. They shouldn't be controlling everything. They shouldn't be controlling the politics. They shouldn't be controlling the free flow of information. What the minister has done is really attacking the constitution, and attacking the constitutional and democratic right of citizens, including doctors and healthcare workers, of professionally airing out issues of concern for their patients. And this something that the minister has started off wrongly.
JOHNNY BLADES: Did he say what would happen to health professionals who speak out, is this something that you'll get punished for?
SY: Well the minister has used his powers to issue authority, but that will not stop us. I must make it very, very clear - I am a senior specialist in the Health Department, the Ministry of Health, and I am also the spokesperson for the Doctor's Association as its secretary - that if we run short of medicines, we will not wait, we will continue making noise, irrespective of the ministerial orders in place. It will not stop us because if we wait for them (the government) it's going to take years and years and the patients will die. We will continue to make noise. We will continue to talk.
JB: The last health Minister, was he not responsive when you raised issue about how the health system was being managed?
SY: Absolutely correct. We had issues with the past ministry and we've had general constraint throughout the different departments, not only affecting the Health Department, and so the poor minister couldn't really perform to the best of his capabilities and abilities. So we couldn't really blame him, but we blamed the system, the political environment of the day. And when we had a medical doctor (Puka Temu) who was appointed as the health minister we were quite happy to work with him. But suddenly he comes out with a loud bang, he decides to put up a big policy to begin with. And I think that policy is completely wrong to start with.
JB: So you're saying he shouldn't stop health workers speaking out on issues of national importance?
SY: Absolutely correct. If I were the minister what I would do is allow for alternative feeedback, alternative collateral source of information. I would create a Facebook account, a Whatsapp account, email account, a hotline, and promote to people that if you find a problem along the way call this line or send the information so that you put the bureaucracy on red alert that if they're not performing there is an alternative source of information being passed up through the hierarchy.
