Samoa's National Health Service's General Manager has stressed that systemic failure is not to be blamed for the deaths of a mother and an unborn child recently on the island of Savaii.

The assertion was shared by Dr. Stanley Dean while he was responding to suggestions in the Samoa media that the double tragedy of last month was a result of systemic failures that were related to a lack of Government funding to the Tuasivi Hospital.

As has been shared by the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Health, Palanitina Tupuimatagi Toelupe, a probe into the deaths has been successfully completed but she cannot release the results yet.

"It's not a systemic problem, it just happened with a few individuals. The service is OK. We have procedures and we have people that you need to consult. But if you fail to consult another level of staff that is above you in that thing that's where an individual failure's concerned, but not the system", said Dr. Dean, while stressing that the Government is putting enough funds into healthcare.