While nearly all hospitals in Fiji have access to basic water services, frontline clinics remain badly under-served, Health Minister Dr Atonio Lalabalavu warned as he opened three upgraded water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects in Namau, Ba. Citing the 2024 WHO–UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program, Dr Lalabalavu said the national picture painted by hospital statistics masks large gaps at nursing stations and health centres that deliver day-to-day primary care.
“While infrastructure progress has been made in healthcare facilities around the country, conditions in clinics and nursing stations remain uneven,” he said. The WHO–UNICEF report shows 94 per cent of hospitals in Fiji have basic water services, but only 42 per cent of clinics have basic handwashing facilities, with nearly a quarter of clinics lacking any handwashing service at all. Toilets at 79 per cent of clinics were described as broken, blocked, without water or otherwise unsafe.
The projects commissioned in Namau—upgrades at Namau Nursing Station, Balevuto Health Centre and Nailaga Health Centre—aim to address some of those shortfalls. According to the Ministry, works restored water supply systems, increased water storage capacity, installed separate toilets for women, men and people living with disabilities, and fitted improved handwashing stations to strengthen infection prevention at each site.
Dr Lalabalavu framed the upgrades as protecting vulnerable patients. “These gaps place mothers, newborns, children, patients and healthcare workers at risk,” he said during the ceremony, noting that reliable WASH services are essential for safe deliveries, routine immunisation sessions and everyday clinical care at the community level.
The three facilities’ improvements are expected to benefit more than 11,000 people in the communities they serve, including roughly 3,000 children, the ministry said. Funding for the projects came from the Korean government’s contribution of US$30 million (about FJ$65.6 million) to UNICEF under the Access to COVID‑19 Tools Accelerator (ACT‑A) Phase 2 programme, part of broader global support aimed at strengthening health system capacity after the pandemic.
The announcement highlights a growing policy focus on bringing basic water security to smaller, rural health posts as Fiji continues wider water-sector reforms. National initiatives aimed at securing and modernising the water supply—ranging from new treatment plants and redistribution programs to smart metering and an airborne groundwater survey—have targeted urban networks and long-term resource planning. Health officials say the Namau-area works show targeted WASH investments can deliver immediate protection at the front lines of care, but the WHO–UNICEF findings underline the scale of upgrades still required across the country’s clinics and nursing stations.
Ministry officials say monitoring of the newly upgraded facilities will follow and that further WASH interventions are planned as funds and partnerships allow, with the goal of closing the gap between hospital-level infrastructure and everyday services for communities dependent on primary health care.