The annual Sathya Service Organisation of Fiji and the UPSM combined medical conference was held at the Saweni campus on August 15. The Minister for Health Dr. Neil Sharma was one of the participants together with local and overseas medical doctors as well as medical students of the University. The aim of the seminar was to discuss major medical issues and ways to address them. The Minister for Health Dr. Neil Sharma spoke about Primary care targets for the general practitioner from 2010 to 2015. He said that with the Fiji Government’s drive to healthcare reform, there was an emerging need to direct an ‘all of society’ approach to achieving Fiji’s International commitments to the Millennium Development Goals. “For the medical profession, the millennium development goal aims to reduce poverty, improve delivery of highest quality care to children, mothers and addressing the increasing incidence of HIV/AIDS and re-emergence of Tuberculosis in Fiji,” he said.

He also added that with the current government’s policies of aiding the poorest in the community with food vouchers, compulsory education, free text books, bus fare exemptions, universal healthcare with improving service delivery, Iron and vitamin supplementation programmes and enhanced vaccination programmes against infectious diseases they were fast-tracking the ‘ills of the past’. Dr. Sharma also thanked the efforts of former Fiji medical specialists abroad for their contribution towards Fiji’s health system. He said that visits by teams of former specialists and individuals were now planned for the rest of 2010 to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Some of the other topics discussed were advances in women's health, the role of the Sai Organisation of Fiji, Australia and New Zealand in volunteering medical services, neuroophthalmic emergencies and forensic medicine. Medical students learnt a lot from the senior doctors that were present and also had the chance to ask questions regarding the challenges that the doctors face in different medical fields.