Call for Samoa health merger to be implemented urgently

Samoa's leaders have called for a drawn out merger of the National Health Services and the Ministry of Health to be implemented urgently.

The prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told SamoaFM radio his cabinet has decided to go with recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry set up to look into the merger.

He said the Nurses Association's insistence to revisit and review the proposed structure of a major body had been a major sticking point.

He said the cabinet had accepted a commission recommendation that it would be easier and cheaper to run.

"But the most important part is for the doctors and nurses to work together and put aside their differences and do what they went into the service for," Tuilaepa said.