Many of Suva’s most vulnerable residents have been left without their monthly family assistance payment of $7 due to a backlog in voucher processing at the Suva Welfare Office. This delay has persisted for over three months.
An increasing number of beneficiaries have been visiting the Bayly Clinic’s welfare office, which has strained the clinic’s resources and nearly forced its closure. The welfare department acknowledged that a backlog had existed since July 1978, attributing it to a significant shortage of staff.
Shirly Hemming from the Bayly Clinic expressed to The Fiji Times that the facility was overwhelmed by a surge of individuals in distress, unable to retrieve their family assistance payments. The clinic was already serving 240 needy families with weekly food packages and could not refuse assistance, even though it found itself in a precarious situation.
To accommodate the influx, the clinic has had to reduce its food supplies of rice and dhal. Hemming noted that their allocated monthly funds from the Bayly Trust were only $750, which led them to draw from their reserves. She warned that at this rate, the clinic could only sustain operations for another four to five months before potentially having to shut down.
Hemming indicated that there were stacks of voucher books for reapplicants at the Government Suva Welfare office, confirming that while they had been processed, they were pending signatures.