AN AUDIT OF OVERSEAS SURGICAL REFERRALS OF MINISTRY OF HEALTH (MOH), FIJI FROM 2014 TO 2016

Introduction: Although there is an increase in the number of cases being referred overseas from the Ministry of Health (MOH), Fiji, there is no local nor regional data available that can be compared too.
The increase in requests is brought about by the availability of mass media in the country in which people can see what people overseas have available for them to treat their conditions. Also with a high number of Fijians residing overseas, they influence the way people here in Fiji approach health care.
Method: This was a descriptive study to stratify who gets referred and the kinds of cases that are being referred for overseas care.
Also to see which countries and which facilities these cases begin referred to.
Results: Most of the cases referred were people between the ages of 0 – 39 years and most were male and of intake descent.
Most of the cases referred were Orthopedics cases followed by Neurosurgery and most were congenital conditions followed by cancers. About 44 % of the cases were not being followed up upon return. Also, it was difficult to gauge progress just by looking at their folders alone be it at the three major hospitals and MOH, Fiji.
Costing information was not available for all of the Cases.
Discussion: It was a retrospective study so not all the data that were pertinent to the study were recorded for all the cases.
There needs to be standardized data collected for all the cases.
There is already a manual that is being used, it just needs to be followed so that meaningful data is collected and readily available.