Samoa's life expectancy, which has recorded a slight increase of 0.17 per cent since 2022, has impressed international medical specialists currently attending a conference in Samoa.

Students, local and international medical experts have converged on the Taumeasina Island Resort for a two-day conference to discuss and show knowledge with peers on various medical issues. The Gold Coast Medical Association's Samoan Medical Conference opened on Friday morning and will close on Saturday.

A presentation at the conference by Samoa's Acting Director General for Health, Tagaloa Robert Thomsen focused on life expectancy for the country in 2023 which he said is 77 years for women and 74 for men. However, the senior Ministry of Health (MOH) official said in his presentation that there has been a slight increase of 0.17 per cent since 2022. 

In an interview with the Samoa Observer on Friday, Pule Dr. Viali Lameko, a Clinical Associate Professor and Public Health Consultant at Tupua Tamasese Mea'ole Teaching Hospital stressed that having overseas specialists in Samoa benefits Samoa in various ways.

He added that they were impressed with Samoa's life expectancy during a presentation on Friday morning on the first day of the two-day conference.

"Most of them, this is their first time in Samoa, they've heard of Samoa and rugby but they've never been to Samoa and just this morning, some of them shared that they are so amazed and happy about how Samoa looks as a country and also for them to learn about the health profile of Samoa," said Dr. Lameko. "They were so amazed about the health profile of Samoa, life expectancy, health indicators and all those things so it's a win-win for everyone participating in this conference.

"The whole idea not only from a local clinician like myself, but also as an academic locally, is to bring the conference here rather than one or two doctors going overseas to one conference.

"It's better to bring all the doctors over here and also nurses if they want to join and learn from the more than 30 specialists from overseas who are actually from different colleges in Australasia who are here to present on different subjects.

"That's the whole idea behind this which is why I was heavily involved in this because I like the idea of bringing them here rather than us going there one by one."

Dr. Lameko added that the conference is also good exposure for Samoa's local doctors and medical students on how to organise medical conferences while acknowledging the calibre of people presenting. 

"Speaking in front of people is a different story altogether and so all of that I believe the benefit of the conference to us altogether and also at the same time is also our colleagues overseas to experience Samoa," he said. 

This week's two-day conference took a whole year of organising between the Oceania University of Medicine,  Gold Coast Medical Association, Samoa's Ministry of Health, Samoa Medical Association and the National University of Samoa.