In November in Solomon Islands, the former Tongan health minister Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala stood outside the main hospital in Honiara and “watched seawater lapping at its outer walls”.
“The facility is now under threat, with plans under way to relocate it to higher ground – a massive and costly undertaking,” Saia, a surgeon and now the World Health Organization’s regional director for the western Pacific, tells the Guardian.
