Country Gallery
ACTIVITIES
LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE
Two fellows from Vanuatu attended the Pacific Leadership Program in 2025, and are being mentored by their Principal Nursing Officer (PNO), Ms. Harriet Sam. Through the program, their leadership skills were developed as they established the SHWP country taskforce and identified key issues in Vanuatu that needed to be addressed.
In July, the PLP fellows organised a SHWP in-country workshop, a first for the SHWP program, bringing together over 60 participants from the Ministry of Health (MoH), Vanuatu Nursing Council (VNC), Vanuatu College of Nursing Education (VCNE), Vila Central Hospital (VCH), other key partners, senior nurses and midwives and 5 outer island province representatives (Tafea, Shefa, Penama, Malampa, Sanma). Workshop details are documented below in the brief.
Future works include strengthening leadership and governance roles including the PNO and VNC, as well as supporting key stakeholders and strengthening the Nursing's Act.
REGULATION
A regulation webinar series was held between November 2024-February 2025, during which Vanuatu's regulatory status was established through the "traffic lights" approach after exploring regulatory frameworks. Following this, senior nurses and midwives also attended four additional webinars on Reigstration, Standards for Practice including codes of ethics and conduct, Accreditation, and Risk Management for public safety. Through the webinars, participants compiled baseline data, analysed data from the State of the World's Nursing Reports and Regional Quality Improvement Program (RQIP) reports, which were expanded upon during the SHWP in-country workshop.
The SHWP taskforce is responsible for prioritising and planning ongoing and future work to establish regional standards. Future works will include developing accreditation standards for education and nursing.
EDUCATION
Prior to SHWP, there was ongoing work to establish a new bachelor's of nursing program with VCNE. As of August 2025, a new intake of 75 students have started at VCNE on the approved 3-year Bachelor of Nursing program. Continued support will be provided to ensure sustainability, as well as alignment with SHWP activities, such as any new standards of practice or accreditation.
GEDSI
GEDSI baseline data has been gathered for Vanuatu. Additionally, there is ongoing activity to raise awareness of GEDSI principles in the health workforce context.
DOCUMENTS