by Jim John
Like most rural parts of Papua New Guinea, Health centres, Aid posts and Hospitals in Western Province continue to face shortages of basic medical drugs.
Dahamo health centre, Rumginae Rural Hospital, Kiunga District Hospital, Bosset health centre, Obo health centre, Wipim health centre and Morehead health centre among others have been seeing more patients treated in the health facilities.
Amidst COVID-19 situations in the province, health workers are doing their best to provide clinical services to patients seeking medical assistance.
Inadequate health infrastructure, lack of medical equipment, supplies and manpower including geographical challenges and logistics support has led to scale down operations of health facilities in Western Province.
However, with the current Western Provincial Health Authority (WPHA) put in place, these ongoing challenges have been identified and will be addressed in coming years.
Western Provincial Health Authority CEO, Dr Niko Wuatai said, they are working closely with Church run health facilities in the province to ensure health care services are delivered to people.
In an exclusive interview with EMTV News this week, the CEO said health facilities not receiving their medical drugs on time, is due to no proper set up in place for procurement and distribution of medical drugs in the province.
“What we are doing now is that every quarter, our team are sent to Badili Area Medical store in the Nation’s Capital for packing and shipment into the province. This is not happening and is affecting the health services”.
He assured the health workers that the PHA is tracking this issue, adding that plans are underway to build a new buffa shop in Daru, for health facilities within the province to have easy procurement and access to supplies.
Meanwhile, about 27% of the population have received their first dose of the vaccination and about 12% of the population were fully vaccinated when vaccination roll out began in Western province in May this year.
