During July, its first full month of operation, the Ministry of Health & Medical Services’ Customer Contact Centre handled almost 1,000 calls, emails and text messages from members of the public.
The main areas of concern raised by those who contacted the centre related to staff attitudes or perceived delays and long waits for attention, which together accounted for 23 per cent of the calls received. The next largest group of calls were those where the caller considered their treatment was ‘unsatisfactory’ (four per cent of the total).
Those figures have been noted by the Ministry and, while it is still too early to identify any real patterns or trends in the data, they provide a useful basis on which to monitor future performance. Where possible, additional information on callers’ actual waiting times and the reasons why they considered their treatment to be unsatisfactory will also be obtained. Such concerns may stem from inadequate explanations by staff or unrealistic expectations on the part of patients: both areas where better communication could help.
The Customer Contact Centre received compliments on services delivered in several facilities including Nadi, Navua and Wainibokasi Hospitals and Valelevu, Dreketi, Raiwaqa, Cuva, Natabua, Balevuto and Nasea Health Centres. There were also a significant number of calls (around one in four) which did not relate to health services or where the caller simply hung up without speaking. Those calls may be a result of people wanting to test out the new service or being unfamiliar with its operation. They will, hopefully, reduce over time.
By the end of the month all but a handful of the issues raised by callers had been satisfactorily resolved with the overall average time taken to deal with an issue and respond to the caller being less than 2½ days.
In a typical month more than 80,000 people attend the Ministry’s hospitals and health centres as inpatients or outpatients. The total number of complaints registered by the Customer Contact Centre in July was fewer than 350 which represents just 0.4 per cent or one in every 250 patients.

Last Updated on 6 years by Publishing Team