A disagreement between a community volunteer group and the Navua Hospital board of visitors has emerged as the latest obstacle to fixing the hospital’s ongoing water shortage, raising fresh concerns among residents and patients who rely on its services.
Worthy Works Fiji coordinator Kamal Narayan, a former chair of the Advisory Counsellors in Navua, said his group has been ready to help for months but that its efforts were blocked by hospital officials. “We had a few meetings with the SDMO (Sub Divisional Medical Officer) since last year, and we were even okay to start,” Narayan said, adding the organisation has “surplus money” it intended to use at the hospital. He said discussions extended beyond local officials to the Water Authority, which had agreed to assist with installing tanks and piping, and that the Ministry of Health had been expected to supply materials such as cement to establish the project’s base.
Narayan said the proposal — a community-driven plan to install water tanks and a pump system to bolster the hospital’s supply — was halted after contact from the board’s secretary. “They don’t know the plight of the people who are visiting the hospital,” he said, accusing board members of preventing volunteers from contributing despite months of preparations and what he described as national-level support lining up to help.
In response, board of visitors secretary Felichya Kayes defended the board’s handling of the situation, saying the board would proceed without outside community assistance. “We won’t need any help, we’ll go ahead and do it ourselves,” Kayes said, and the board maintains that government-provided tanks and other materials are already on-site and work is under way.
The competing accounts leave the status of the water project unclear. Narayan maintains the volunteer initiative was intended to be non-profit and ready to begin immediately, while the board insists government supplies have been delivered and that it is managing the installation. Neither side offered a concrete completion timetable in statements to date, and the extent of any on-the-ground work at the hospital could not be independently verified from either account.
Community members have reacted with frustration as the dispute plays out, saying delays have prolonged inadequate water access at the facility. The hospital’s water supply has been described as an ongoing problem; proponents of the volunteer plan argued that rapid installation of tanks and a pump would provide an immediate improvement in services for patients, visitors and staff.
The split highlights wider questions about coordination between community groups, hospital governance structures and government agencies on essential infrastructure projects. Worthy Works Fiji says it has the funds, contacts and ready plans to act swiftly; the board is asserting its authority and responsibility to manage the hospital’s response, saying government resources are already directed to the site. With both sides claiming progress, residents and patients remain uncertain when reliable water supply will be restored.
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