Latest news with #Aiono
RNZ News
7 days ago
- Climate
- RNZ News
Pacific doctors coping with dengue cases, say health leaders
Photo: 123RF Most dengue fever outbreaks are not slowing down in the Pacific but there are hopes this will change as the weather gets colder and drier. Samoa's director general of health Aiono Dr Alec Ekeroma said the country saw 56 new cases of the viral infection last week, which is close to a third of the confirmed cases since January. Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and the Cook Islands have all declared dengue outbreaks. All countries apart from the Cook Islands have recorded at least one death. Aiono said Samoa's Ministry of Health is encouraging people to stamp out breeding grounds, which is preferred over spraying campaigns. "The chemicals [are] expensive and it's not as effective as we would like it to be, so it's better actually that we engage the community to destroy breeding sites," Aiono said. He said health care staff are managing. "The good thing is that there's been no very sick cases really recently, so in fact looking at the data there's no one in the hospital right now." Fiji Medical Association president, Dr Alipate Vakamocea thinks Fiji is about to hit its dengue peak. "It's seasonal, so it should be on its way down and we've seen the numbers from the Central Division start to come down," he said. "It's just our numbers in the Western Division haven't really started to settle yet but we should see that now that we're entering into the cold season." Fiji's health ministry has declared an outbreak in the Central and Western Divisions. There have been more than one-thousand cases recorded. "We've noticed that the outbreak is particularly higher in the Western Division compared to the Central Division, and we've had quite a few admissions into hospital with dengue and even quite a few into ICUs with complications of dengue." Vakamocea said doctors are coping. "We've had some challenges, which we've raised in the past with a couple of our consumables, like our IV fluids and things like that," he said. "But they're managing at the moment. I think there are other donor partners who have stepped in to help the ministry bolster its clinical support." He said there had been significant public health campaigns to clean up and reduce the number of mosquito breeding sites. A statement from Cook Islands Ministry of Health on Friday said five cases were considered active, there have been 17 cases since February, and 97 dengue tests have been done. "The average rate remains stable at approximately 1 - 2 confirmed cases per day," it said. Tonga has had 815 cases.
Scoop
19-05-2025
- Health
- Scoop
Learning Support In Schools At Breaking Point, Report Finds
Teachers and principals are calling the situation 'dire', according to a new report. Learning support in schools is at breaking point, with some schools fearing a child is going to die in their care because they cannot provide the appropriate supervision, according to a new report. The report by the Aotearoa Educators' Collective highlighted broken funding systems, families battling bureaucracy and children who have extra needs denied access. Learning support is for neurodivergent children, or those with disabilities, health needs or experiences of trauma. Report author Dr Sarah Aiono said the most frequent and hard hitting answer to the survey on the state of learning support was just one word: 'Dire'. '[Teachers] shared that it was just stretched beyond capacity, that they were doing the work to secure funding, that they were trying to navigate the needs, they were trying to advocate all over and above their basic core job which is to be in school and to teach our children,' she said. Aiono said schools were concerned about their ability to keep children safe. 'I had one principal who said to me that they have a student in their school who faints between 16 and 22 times a day and she did not qualify for high health needs support, so because there was no funding available to manage that her teachers and her peers in her high school were left to manage every time she fainted,' she said. 'Teachers and principals are scared they're going to lose a child to death, that a child is going to die under their care because they cannot provide the supervision to support that child to be safe at school.' An estimated 15-20 percent of the population is neurodivergent, but only 6-7 percent of students receive any publicly funded learning support. 'We're now getting to the point where there are actually more children in classrooms than we've ever had before with multiple needs, so it's a sort of perfect storm coming together now that the needs are growing exponentially but the funding is not keeping up and our expertise or availability to specialist support is not available either,' Aiono said. 'One of the parents that I spoke to, she's been waiting for about six to 12 weeks since her 14-year-old has been out of school to even know where to get the help and in that time she's worrying that that child is now not getting support to face NCEA the following year.' The report found Māori and Pasifika students, those attending rural schools and neurodivergent students were most affected by chronic underfunding, fragmented provision and inconsistent access. The report, titled Beyond Capacity: Learning Support in Crisis, is being launched at Parliament on Tuesday, and Education Minister Erica Stanford has been invited.
Scoop
19-05-2025
- Health
- Scoop
Learning Support In Schools At Breaking Point, Report Finds
Learning support in schools is at breaking point, with some schools fearing a child is going to die in their care because they cannot provide the appropriate supervision, according to a new report. The report by the Aotearoa Educators' Collective highlighted broken funding systems, families battling bureaucracy and children who have extra needs denied access. Learning support is for neurodivergent children, or those with disabilities, health needs or experiences of trauma. Report author Dr Sarah Aiono said the most frequent and hard hitting answer to the survey on the state of learning support was just one word: "Dire". "[Teachers] shared that it was just stretched beyond capacity, that they were doing the work to secure funding, that they were trying to navigate the needs, they were trying to advocate all over and above their basic core job which is to be in school and to teach our children," she said. Aiono said schools were concerned about their ability to keep children safe. "I had one principal who said to me that they have a student in their school who faints between 16 and 22 times a day and she did not qualify for high health needs support, so because there was no funding available to manage that her teachers and her peers in her high school were left to manage every time she fainted," she said. "Teachers and principals are scared they're going to lose a child to death, that a child is going to die under their care because they cannot provide the supervision to support that child to be safe at school." An estimated 15-20 percent of the population is neurodivergent, but only 6-7 percent of students receive any publicly funded learning support. "We're now getting to the point where there are actually more children in classrooms than we've ever had before with multiple needs, so it's a sort of perfect storm coming together now that the needs are growing exponentially but the funding is not keeping up and our expertise or availability to specialist support is not available either," Aiono said. "One of the parents that I spoke to, she's been waiting for about six to 12 weeks since her 14-year-old has been out of school to even know where to get the help and in that time she's worrying that that child is now not getting support to face NCEA the following year." The report found Māori and Pasifika students, those attending rural schools and neurodivergent students were most affected by chronic underfunding, fragmented provision and inconsistent access. The report, titled Beyond Capacity: Learning Support in Crisis, is being launched at Parliament on Tuesday, and Education Minister Erica Stanford has been invited.
Otago Daily Times
19-05-2025
- Health
- Otago Daily Times
Learning support in schools at breaking point: report
Learning support in schools is at breaking point, with some schools fearing a child is going to die in their care because they cannot provide the appropriate supervision, according to a new report. The report by the Aotearoa Educators' Collective highlighted broken funding systems, families battling bureaucracy and children who have extra needs denied access. Learning support is for neurodivergent children, or those with disabilities, health needs or experiences of trauma. Report author Dr Sarah Aiono said the most frequent and hard-hitting answer to the survey on the state of learning support was just one word: "Dire". "[Teachers] shared that it was just stretched beyond capacity, that they were doing the work to secure funding, that they were trying to navigate the needs, they were trying to advocate all over and above their basic core job which is to be in school and to teach our children," she said. Aiono said schools were concerned about their ability to keep children safe. "I had one principal who said to me that they have a student in their school who faints between 16 and 22 times a day and she did not qualify for high health needs support, so because there was no funding available to manage that her teachers and her peers in her high school were left to manage every time she fainted," she said. "Teachers and principals are scared they're going to lose a child to death, that a child is going to die under their care because they cannot provide the supervision to support that child to be safe at school." An estimated 15-20% of the population is neurodivergent, but only 6-7% of students receive any publicly funded learning support. "We're now getting to the point where there are actually more children in classrooms than we've ever had before with multiple needs, so it's a sort of perfect storm coming together now that the needs are growing exponentially but the funding is not keeping up and our expertise or availability to specialist support is not available either," Aiono said. "One of the parents that I spoke to, she's been waiting for about six to 12 weeks since her 14-year-old has been out of school to even know where to get the help and in that time she's worrying that that child is now not getting support to face NCEA the following year." The report found Māori and Pasifika students, those attending rural schools and neurodivergent students were most affected by chronic underfunding, fragmented provision and inconsistent access. The report, titled Beyond Capacity: Learning Support in Crisis , is being launched at Parliament on Tuesday, and Education Minister Erica Stanford has been invited.
