By Eileen Natuzzi, M.D.
The downwind approach of my Boeing 737 into Honiara International Airport goes over Iron Bottom Sound, with Savo Island off in the distance. Below are the rusted remains of two Imperial Japanese Navy transport ships that ran aground on the northern coast of Guadalcanal in November 1942.
On final approach, the plane glides over World War II battlefields now converted into squatters’ camps built of wood, tin, and grass. The white triangular battlefield marker at Bloody Ridge is visible as the plane settles onto the runway. There is one taxiway at the airport and the rusted old control tower built in 1943 is still standing along its western side.
Honiara International Airport is Henderson Field, the very airstrip the Guadalcanal campaign of World War II was fought over. The runway is paved now and it has been extended to allow larger jets, like the 737 I arrive on, to land.
I travel to the Solomon Islands three times a year. I am a doctor, a surgeon. I work in the Solomons because there is only one doctor for every 18,000 people. Outside the capital, Honiara, located on Guadalcanal, there is virtually no surgical care available. A child with appendicitis must travel hundreds of miles by boat to get surgical care. Even in Honiara at the country’s main hospital, the National Referral Hospital (NRH), there are backlogs of patients waiting for surgical treatment.
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