Rip Van Winkle in Fiji

Rip Van Winkle wakes up: development of tuberculosis treatment in the 21st century.

The increase in drug-resistant tuberculosis and the global pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus infection-related tuberculosis threaten global tuberculosis control. There are needs for improved therapy in all aspects of tuberculosis treatment: treatment of latent infection, active drug-susceptible disease, and particularly, drug-resistant disease. Fortunately, at this time of great need, th...

Waking Rip van Winkle: why developments in the last 20 years should teach the mental health system not to use housing as a tool of coercion.

Many housing programs for people with mental illnesses rely on models that require the person to adhere to treatment as a condition of continuing access to housing. These models that 'bundle' housing and treatment are relics of a past in which persons with mental illnesses were afforded little real choice in treatment, housing and other social supports. Conditioning access to housing in this ma...

Arie Rip

Social Policies in Fiji

In this paper we review Fiji's social development policies and strategies in the postindependence period, drawing on various development plans. We conclude that Fiji has followed a fairly good set of social development strategies over the last 40 years. Education and health, which were prioritized from the colonial period, have received continued government commitment. The strategies and focuse...

Low Decision Space Means No Decentralization in Fiji; Comment on “Decentralisation of Health Services in Fiji: A Decision Space Analysis”

Mohammed, North, and Ashton find that decentralization in Fiji shifted health-sector workloads from tertiary hospitals to peripheral health centres, but with little transfer of administrative authority from the centre. Decisionmaking in five functional areas analysed remains highly centralized. They surmise that the benefits of decentralization in terms of services and outcomes will be limited....