'Can actually cure patients': Canberra team helps nation's first oncologist

The Pacific Island nation did not have an oncology unit, a medical oncologist or a CT machine. There was no identifiable palliative care service either.

All that has changed over recent years with a team from Canberra helping to set up the nation's first oncology unit.

Senior haematologist Nalini Pati said it was "mind boggling" to see the services in the Solomon Islands.

"They think once a cancer is diagnosed, you're going to die. Even those cancers that can be treated and cured," he said.

"Now they can actually cure patients."

The first and only oncologist in the Solomon Islands, Andrew Soma, has recently completed his training with help from the team at Canberra Hospital.

Dr Soma was able to train as a medical oncologist through distance education at a Melbourne university. He was a registrar working on a ward at the National Referral Hospital in Honiara and he wanted to become an oncologist.

He spent one month in Canberra as part of his training. There were also nurses who came to the nation's capital for training.

Dr Soma qualified as an oncologist earlier this year. He is in regular touch with the Canberra team, who are planning to visit Honiara later this year.

The team has been working with the National Referral Hospital in Honiara since 2016. It was prompted following a request from the hospital's medical superintendent who wanted a review of their cancer services.

Canberra Hospital oncologist Desmond Yip said, of his 2016 visit, the centre was not coordinated. He made a range of recommendations around centralising services and having dedicated cancer doctors and nurses.

"I looked at what the setup was for treating cancer patients. It wasn't very coordinated," he said.

"There would be different doctors from different specialties managing patients with different sorts of cancers."

There were also significant safety issues as staff did not have a safe area to mix chemotherapy and they weren't using protective equipment, meaning they were constantly exposing themselves to toxic drugs.

There were other administrative matters that needed tackling as well, such as how to schedule and appropriately stagger appointments throughout the day.

The team has also broadened its scope to examine and make changes in palliative care services. Palliative care nurse practitioner Kate Reed is a recent addition to the team who visited Honiara last year.

"My role at that point was to do a scoping exercise for the palliative care service. What was there, what was required. So really a fact-finding mission would be the best way of describing it," Ms Reed said.

"And what's come out of that [is] there isn't an identifiable palliative care service."

Ms Reed said there were inconsistencies in medication as availability was scarce on the Pacific Island nation. During her visit she identified nurses and doctors across the hospital who were interested in palliative care.

She said a team of 10 had been established and she often communicated with them on WhatsApp.

"There's a lot of work that needs to be done from a human suffering point of view and palliative care is a human right for all to be offered. We're just trying to enable a system to help them from afar," Ms Reed said.