For the 7th Bilateral Health Summit to be successful, Lt. Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga has called for merging, among other things, of health and legislation along with “a lot of awareness and exercise programs,” while Health Director Motusa Tuileama Nua sought collaborative efforts from all sectors of the two Samoas in order to address health care issues for both American Samoa and Samoa.

Both Lemanu and Motusa delivered their respective remarks at yesterday’s opening of the three-day summit at the Gov. H. Rex Lee Auditorium, and attended by a delegation of about 30 people from Samoa, as well as representatives from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Pacific Health Officers Association (in which American Samoa is a member) and the World Health Organization.

Motusa, who was the first one to deliver remarks, said the three-day summit “is for us to network.”

Regarding health care in the two Samoas, he said “I look at it in a triangular vision” with one point of that triangle being health care, the other point is “our system and our policies that hold the health care together” and the third point is “our community.”

“And inside that triangle are resources and the time — how efficient we manage those resources and how much time we have to get to the community and take care of our patients — to bring value and to raise the level of health care system we deliver,” he said.

“We experienced in the last four years that there are a lot of gaps in between and in order for us to recognize and identify those gaps, we have to be working in a collaborative effort, in a team work and making sure we share information and data not only to LBJ but public health, but all our partners that are dealing with the health care of our community to include our partners from Samoa and working with our federal agencies,” he said.

Motusa said this “is not going to be an overnight fix” as “Rome was not build in one day” and for American Samoa, it takes a lot to move something forward, as there is the federal government that the territory must also deal with, unlike Samoa — an independent state.  Despite this, he said, the two Samoas can still achieve what’s set up to do in addressing health care services for their people. ‘

This year’s theme is, “Saving Money, Saving Time, and Saving Life”. In a message to participants in the summit program agenda, Motu said the theme “demonstrates the essential components that impact not just our Samoan people, but also our global partners.”

“We have come together because we believe in sustaining our countries through sharing best practices and culturally appropriate interventions that aim to improve the quality of life for our island nations,” he said and urged summit participants to “engage with one another, contribute to the dialogues, and examine your role in improving the health of our people.”

In his remarks, Lemanu said the summit is now in it’s 7th year and called on participants not to “underestimate the seriousness” of this year as well as previous year summits. He called on those who have participated in previous summits to share their knowledge with others. Additionally, the summit has provided ways for American Samoa and Samoa to improve health care for their people.

To address the challenges of today’s health care, Lemanu called on the audience to look at past behavior patterns to get answers needed. He noted the two Samoas’ “remoteness from the rest of the world and our living history of healthy people... navigators of the Pacific, survivors of the islands, the pride of the Pacific.”

“And within the history of Samoa, our local food and just the way we do chores — day-by-day activities — tend to be the exercise of the day. I strongly think that we have the advantage over the world for we have the chance to manage our lives and how we live,” he said. “And that’s how important this summit is to... American Samoa and Samoa.”

“Because of the spectrum of your effort in this summit, the successfulness depends largely in merging health, legislative and a lot of awareness and exercise programs,” he said.

The summit’s keynote presenter is Bob Grunewald, an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who spoke on “Return on Investments” covering several areas in his presentation including a project called “healthy communities.”

Grunewald points out that “those who are making more money, have jobs and working, tends to have more resources and to be also healthier.” So “what we recognize at the Federal Reserve, we have a role in community development to bring together partners from different sectors to strategize in making a healthier population.”

One of the projects he cited is called “healthy communities” where “we bring together” public health and officials those who are working in public health with those who typically work in community development.

“Let’s say they work in projects to increase the number of affordable homes in the community or are looking at issues around development such as parks, infrastructure and transportation development,” he said. “And we bring together both public health and community development in order to strategize a cross sector, to understand, perhaps community development can be investing in public health projects.”

“So we have been able to foster collaboration around health care access, while housing development is been planned to think about the accessibility of that housing development to medical health centers and also child care,” Grunewald said.

He said the goal is that after the summit for participants to think about who they would go back to in their community, which organizations and institutions, “you might want to reach out to partner with.”

In American Samoa, he said he “recognized churches are a very strong part of this culture and society and can be a very strong leverage point to improve health” in the territory, Grunewald said.

The summit continues today and its open to the public.