13 Nov 2012

MSF wants expansion of domestic violence medical centres across PNG

6:18 am on 13 November 2012

The international medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontiere, wants to expand the family support centres it provides in Papua New Guinea for the victims of domestic violence.

The organisation's international president, Dr Unni Karunakara, is in PNG where he's visited their two centres, in Tari in the Highlands and Lae in Morobe.

The support centres provide medical care and psychological help and Dr Karunakara says they are called on to perform dozens of surgeries and see more than 60 victims of rape each month.

He says they are providing a service that is not otherwise available in PNG and he will meet with the government later this week to call for it to be spread across the country.

"They have a draft guideline for establishing family support centres. We would like them to publish that and then roll out these services in all of the provincial and district hospitals in the country. But going beyond that, I think may of the affected people in the country live in rural areas so it is also important that these services are available in the villages."