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Pacific Partnership 2009 Departs Solomon Islands

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS090819-13
Release Date: 8/19/2009 10:19:00 PM

By Lt. Cmdr. Nancy Harrity, Pacific Partnership Public Affairs

HONIARA, Solomon Islands (NNS) -- Pacific Partnership 2009 departed Solomon Islands Aug. 19 after 14 days of working alongside Solomon Islanders delivering a variety of humanitarian civic assistance programs on the islands of Guadalcanal and Malaita.

Pacific Partnership 2009 was the mission's second visit to Solomon Islands, with the first taking place during Pacific Partnership 2007.

This year's visit coincided with the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal and the 26th anniversary of the island of Malaita's Second Appointed Day, the annual celebration of the province's independence. Representatives from Pacific Partnership participated in ceremonies observing both events.

The medical team provided a number of services in programs on Guadalcanal and Malaita treating a total of 4,748 patients.

The medical program for Solomon Islands started with a two-day outreach in the village of Visale, nearly an hour's drive outside the nation's capital and where the Japanese first landed during World War II. Eight members of the medical team treated 632 patients during the course of two days.

The medical team moved on to the island of Malaita. During four and a half days at Kilu'ufi Referral Hospital, the medical team integrated with four host nation doctors, eight nurses, one dental therapist, 15 Australian volunteers from the HMAS Betano and HMAS Wewak and eight volunteers from USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE 4) to see 2,255 patients.

The biomedical repair team completed a total of 47 assessments and repairs of equipment at the hospital, improving the hospital's ability to serve its patients and its repair team's ability to repair the hospital's equipment. The team assessed the hospital's broken incinerator, identifying a integrated circuit chip and relay as the cause of its malfunction and instructed the hospital's local maintenance person on how to replace the circuit board when a new one arrives. The team successfully repaired a clogged pipette station on the hospital laboratory's biochemistry analyzer, which had been inoperable for almost a year resulting in patients needing to travel to Honiara for testing.

The team returned to Honiara for nearly three days at Good Samaritan Hospital, where they saw 1,713 patients and integrated six Solomon Islander nurses, five Solomon Islanders and one Australian volunteer and four non-governmental organization volunteers from Seventh Day Adventists.

The veterinary team saw a variety of animals from domestic animals including cats and dogs to livestock including bulls, cows, pigs and chickens. They even saw goats and ducks. In total, the team performed 71 desexing operations, 754 dewormings, 23 vaccinations, two surgeries, 73 other sick call visits and a total of 24 hours of subject matter expert exchange.

The preventive medicine team returned to where the U.S. Navy's epidemiology specialty started to continue their work toward defeating malaria by spraying for mosquitoes. The team also evaluated drinking water sources, provided recommendations on water sources and conducted training on how to perform chlorine tests.

One member of the team worked with Solomon Islands Ministry of Health for the Measles Elimination Campaign, completing an assessment of logistics and social mobilization in rural health centers.

Engineering teams completed a number of projects at three schools on Guadalcanal including Honiara Red Cross Special Development Center, Marrara Primary School and Visale Primary School.

The largest project was at Honiara Red Cross Special Development Center, which provides training to 150 handicapped children ages 3 to 20 years old, to teach them independent living skills.

The team of engineers from Australia and the U.S. completed a partially finished classroom building and built a new classroom building on an existing concrete slab, to provide the center with additional classrooms for home economics and industrial arts training. This work included all framing for the new building, installation of electrical lighting, outlets, ceiling fans, jalousie windows, sliding glass doors, vinyl tile flooring, corrugated roofing and exterior ship-lap siding, finishing interior walls, priming and painting interior and exterior surfaces and pouring 67 linear feet of concrete sidewalks.

The team also improved site grading and drainage and repaired the roof on an existing classroom building.

Marrara Primary School in Tanagai Parrish on Guadalcanal serves 1,090 primary and secondary students. The school was damaged during recent flooding and required renovations to the classroom structures, water catchment system and grounds.

The engineering team installed new gutters, downspouts, fascia and water catchment tanks for two separate classroom buildings improving the school's ability to gather fresh water. They also repaired ceilings and interior walls, completed shiplap siding on exterior walls and primed and painted the interior and exterior walls of five classroom buildings.

At Visale School, which serves approximately 500 students, the Australian and American team was joined by local volunteers to replace the roof on a 27' x 46' building used as classrooms and offices. The multinational team replaced the steel security mesh on the building's windows and primed and painted the interior and exterior walls of the building.

At Tamboko Primary School, the engineering team installed water catchment system including two new water catchment tanks and guttering, improving the school's ability to capture rain water.

On the eastern part of the island, the engineering team replaced the Konga foot bridge, safely connecting the local community to its health clinic.

The Pacific Partnership team this visit included military and government personnel from Australia, Canada, Chile, the Republic of Korea and the United States and civilian volunteers from International Relief Teams, Project Hope and University of California San Diego Pre-Dental Society who worked alongside their local counterparts.

Additionally, Loloma Foundation and Interplast accepted a number of surgical referrals from the medical civic action programs.

Pacific Partnership works by, with and through partner nations, non-governmental organizations and other U.S. government and international agencies to execute a variety of humanitarian civic assistance (HCA) missions in the Pacific Fleet Area of Responsibility from a ship dedicated to this HCA mission.

This year's mission is focused ashore with a variety of engineering, medical and dental civic action programs providing humanitarian civic assistance. The mission continues on to Kiribati and the Republic of the Marshall Islands and has completed visits to Samoa, Tonga and Solomon Islands.