Women's needs in Pacific disaster focus of UN help

Radio Australia
8 October 2010

Now we are going to turn our attention to the special needs and vulnerabilities of women and young people after natural disasters which include prenatal care, assisted delivery, and emergency obstetric care.

Radio Australias presenter, Geraldine Coutts speaks with Dr Wame Baravilala, Reproductive Health Adviser for the United Nations Population Fund in Fiji.

BARALIVALA: Well we're still waiting for the detailed report from the UNICEF team that went across, but in the initial phases we can actually just respond very quickly just based on the total number of people that have been affected. So on Friday we sent through dignity packs and we're still waiting to hear back from the authorities mainly in Samoa but also in Tonga as to what their needs are. I think the situation in Tonga and Samoa are quite different from what we experienced in the Solomons because of the archipelagic nature of the country was much more difficult to deal with. With Tonga and Samoa I think it's a lot easier but we're still waiting for the information to come through.

COUTTS: Okay and the dignity packs of course are for women and their monthly needs is that right?

BARAVILALA: That's right, not only that but just to meet their basic hygiene needs, so sanitary pads, t-shirts, bathing soap, that kind of stuff, that's all been packed and is sent through and we're about to produce another four-thousand.

COUTTS: How long will it before you get an assessment of exactly what needs to be done in Samoa and Tonga for women and young people?

BARAVILALA: It'll come through either today or tomorrow because the team from UNICEF have been working really hard to get the information. But we're essentially organising the whole UN response also have a couple of people there so we think we should be able to get all the data. But in any event we sort of know roughly the number of people that have been affected so we can actually respond to that and try and meet their sexual and reproductive health care.

COUTTS: Well some of the other priorities include safe motherhood and we touched on a few of those and prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. What can you do in these extreme circumstances in those instances?

BARAVILALA: Well it's pretty straighforward, we have, you know the UNFPA has a set of reproductive health kits that we send out, so we're really just waiting to hear about the numbers that are involved. But we're thinking about sending out what's called a reproductive health kit number six, which essentially can look after the needs of about 30-thousand people for three months in terms of meeting all their reproductive health needs. So these are the deliveries that need to take place.

COUTTS: Are there many expectant mothers in the tsunami areas at the moment?

BARAVILALA: We don't know that yet, no we don't. But I'm sure there will be, I mean that's quite a populated part of Upulo. So we're waiting to hear back from that. But we should be able to respond, kits sent should be able to cope, more than cope with the needs that's anticipated for the next three to six months.