World Child Cancer has a project in the Pacific Islands. Experienced child cancer units in hospitals in Auckland and Christchurch in New Zealand will provide twinning support for the projects based at Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. 

Major Challenges

• Until 2006 almost no child with cancer in Fiji, Tonga or Samoa survived.   Since then some progress has been made but survival rates remain low.
• Child cancer is the third most common cause of death in Pacific children.
• There are estimated to be between 70 to 110 cases of child cancer a year in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa but not all are diagnosed. 
• Late diagnosis is a major problem with little awareness of the symptoms of child cancer amongst parents and primary healthcare workers. 
• Despite having most of the medicines to cure cancer there is little specialist knowledge amongst local doctors and nurses about how to treat children with cancer. 
• Palliative care is very under-developed with many families not being able to access effective pain relief medications for their child. 
• Many children fail to complete the full course of treatment because of the practical difficulties of long hospital stays often thousands of miles from home.  

Project Objectives

• To increase survival rates for children with curable cancers and improve the provision of palliative care for those children with incurable cancers.
• To create a centre of excellence in the treatment of child cancer at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva, Fiji staffed by doctors and nurses with specialist paediatric oncology expertise.
• To create satellite diagnosis and treatment centres on Tonga and Samoa.  
• To improve the support offered to families to reduce abandonment of treatment. 

Key Facts

• Fiji, Tonga and Samoa are middle income countries with per capita incomes of US $3,630, $3,280 and $3,000 (Gross National Income (GNI), Atlas Method, World Bank Data 2010) respectively 
• However, poverty is a major problem with around 25% of people in the region living below the poverty line
• There is a huge disparity in the provision of good quality healthcare partly as a result of the geography of the region and inequalities in the distribution of income
• The region has a similar incidence of child cancer to developed countries    

Project Centre: Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Suva, Fiji; Lautoka Hospital, Lautoka, Fiji; Vaiola Hospital, Nuku'alofa, Tonga; Tupua Tamasese Meaole (TTM) Hospital, Apia, Samoa.
Project leader: Dr Jane Skeen
Twinning Centres: Starship Children's Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand with Samoa and Tonga. South Islands Children's Cancer Service, Christchurch, New Zealand with Fiji.