It is with great sadness that we note the passing of our Club Charter member, Bill Minns.

• He was a committee member of Berwick State School for four years
• He was a volunteer fire fighter with the Berwick CFA for many years
• Bill was also a member of the Berwick Progress Association in the 1950s, a member of the Berwick Chamber of Commerce and a committee member of the Berwick Football Club

The Rotary Club of Berwick has partnered with the Rotary Clubs of Ballarat West and the Rotary Club of Honiara to equip a major dental centre that will improve 1000's of lives in the Solomon Islands. 

Using the expertise of Dr David Goldsmith (RC Ballarat West) and his team of volunteer dental equipment experts combined with the sourcing and shipping power of Rotary Donations in Kind (DIK) and then added to the tax-deductible Rotary Australia World Community Service, Project 29/2018-19, we have an opportunity to make a lot of peoples lives a whole lot better. Please read on.

The Solomon Islands has a population of over 625,000 scattered over more than 900 islands but Government services and most facilities are centered on the capital, Honiara.  The Solomon Islands is one of the world’s poorest nations with a GDP that has been ranked 173rd. of 185 nations. The National Referral Hospital (NRH) in the capital, Honiara, is the largest hospital in the Solomon Islands and looks after the most acute cases from all over the country with over 300 beds and over 50 doctors. This hospital sees the vast majority of the medical cases in the Solomon Islands and is often overstretched, and at times at bursting point

The NRH Dental clinic was closed in 2012 . Dental Services at the NRH are currently being provided out of a single dental chair caravan parked in the hospital grounds.   Public dental services are rudimentary, even in Honiara, and are mostly limited to extractions and pain relief. Each morning over 100 pain patients attend the only public dental clinic in Honiara, which is located in the Police Station in Chinatown. It has 4 chairs so they only see the first 30 patients and send the others away. There is a high level of edentulism but the public dental prosthetic lab. has been closed for 4 years. In addition, Betel Nut chewing, which is common in the Solomon Islands, results in one of the highest incidences of Oral Cancer in the world

However, there is no shortage of dental professionals. The Head of Population Oral Health Research, Dr Ellison Vane, tells me there are 40 qualified dentists in the Solomon Islands, but the lack of facilities means many are working part time, or not at all, and they are losing their skills. In addition, there are 15 dental students currently training to graduate at the Fiji and PNG dental schools.

BETEL NUT IN HOSPITAL Grounds	TEMPORARY CITY PUBLIC DENTAL CLINIC IN CHINATOWN POLICE STATION	KULUM DENTAL CLINIC, HONIARA(since closed)