Status of public health in the Republic of Palau.
In terms of Public Health, the people of Palau can be said to enjoy quite good health and are blessed with relatively good medical facilities. Over the years, the trend we have been following it to "bring health to the community" by building the community health centers with ownership held by stakeholders in the respective locations. Palau's isolation with scattered islands over a vast area of ocean makes it imperative to establish these community health centers in order to bring health closer to the people. Like most developing nations, Palau has its health challenges. We have also seen that attention must also be directed at animal health. In Palau we have also focused much attention on emergency health, and have taken steps to set up a viable emergency health response. It has been said that "there is no health without mental health." Development of adequate human resources in medicine, public health, nursing, and allied health is a major challenge for Palau. A policy we have adopted is to conduct our own training programs where high school graduates are recruited to take such training that prepares them for entry level into nursing and allied health. Once gaining entry into a chosen field, we attempt to place promising students at medical, health or nursing schools locally and abroad where Palauan students may train and return home to serve our health needs. Palau has only one 80-bed, government-owned, modest hospital to serve its population of 20,000. With the changing health environment and changing needs, we find the hospital increasingly becoming small. As a small developing country, Palau has limited medical equipment for basic medical care. Through much assistance from the World Health Organization, we have benefited immensely with training and many other useful programs and information about health. We continue to believe firmly that public health crosses all boundaries and respects no politics, and people should no longer be neglected or ignored where health is at issue! I hope by contributing to this issue of Pacific Health Dialog, Palau can reach all our friends, especially the Pacificans.
Pierantozzi
Sandra Sumang
SS
D003151:Community Health Centers / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D019029:Palau; D011634:Public Health