Ministry of Health

The Butterfly Trust has worked closely in partnership with the Vanuatu Ministry of Health (MOH) since 2011. It maintains a Memorandum of Understanding with the MOH to ensure that all its activities in the health sector fall within the framework and strategic plans of the MOH. The Trust meets regularly with officials of the MOH, at central government level in Port Vila, and at a provincial level in the outer islands.

The Trust relies heavily on clinical practitioners from the MOH to carry out the partnership’s programmes. Only if there is insufficient local capacity will it call on volunteers from outside Vanuatu. The aim of both the MOH and the Trust is that, over the upcoming years, the MOH will assume total responsibility for the running of all the programmes of the partnership. The Trust will continue to provide support by way of resourcing and administration.

Programmes that are currently being run under this partnership include:

Health Promoting Schools – a joint initiative with the Ministry of Education & Training to provide health education in primary schools.
Palliative Care – an investigation into the establishment of a palliative care system for Vanuatu. (The Trust has presented a lengthy report on this subject to the MOH and it is currently working its way, slowly, through the political process in Port Vila.)
Community Health Education programmes in Penama, Malampa and Shefa provinces.
The Lamap Dental Clinic.
Outreaches to remote villages in Central and South Malekula to educate, screen, and, where possible, treat villagers for a wide range of medical conditions – dental, eye, ENT (ear, nose and throat), NCDs (non-communicable diseases eg. diabetes), cervical cancer (in collaboration with Ikkana Cancer Foundation), and NTD (neglected tropical diseases eg. yaws).

For more detail about these programmes please see the Our Communities pages for Penama/Ambae, Maskelyne Islands, Malekula.

For historical detail of the work of the Trust with the MOH please go to the Newsletters tab.