PNG's medical helicopter service keeps reaching new heights
Papua New Guinea's only medical helicopter service is expanding, but its chief executive says funding it is still a problem.
Transcript
Papua New Guinea's only medical helicopter service is expanding, but its chief executive says funding it is still a problem.
Manolos Aviation started a service in Morobe province in 2009 with only a helicopter, a pilot and a stretcher.
But its chief executive, Jurgen Ruh, says the service now has a nurse and medical equipment on every flight, which has drastically improved survival rates, and the service has just expanded into Milne Bay and Oro provinces.
Mr Ruh told Jamie Tahana about the challenges of running a medical helicopter service in PNG, and says his expansion plans aren't finished yet.
JURGEN RUH: It was just very basic in 2009 it was the pilots and the stretcher. The medivacs during that time would have been about 50 a year with then with the mobile communications rolling out into remote areas communications had improved and people were able to get a message through a lot faster when there was a distress in the village. And from then onwards the number of medivacs we conducted would increase every year. 2013 we have then employed a nurse and we now conduct all our medivacs with a nurse who will stabilise the patient prior to the patient being brought to Lae and this was mainly through drips or anything else she needed for the flight back. And since the nurse joined the medivac service we have not lost a patient since 2013 now. We count the number of medivacs we do in the Morobe province is about 150 a year and with our expansion into the Oro and the Milne Bay provinces which are not as densely populated as the Morobe province we expect this years numbers to be around 205 per year.
JAMIE TAHANA: And you have just expanded into Oro and Milne Bay province have you?
JR: That is correct, those are neighbouring provinces and we have also based a helicopter now in Milne Bay to cover the Milne Bay province. And the Milne Bay province has got a lower population but the population is quite spread. We have, I think it was on the 30th of January this year we launched the service in the E'esala district and during the launching I really realised then how hard the health workers in Milne Bay tried for so long with so little support in trying to save a persons life, the health workers would often walk from the health centre into villages to treat a patient. Then put the patient perhaps on a speed boat go across rough weathers to try and arrive in Alotau a day maybe two days later and only to see that the patient perhaps expired on the way. And they would go back to the villages and do the same thing again. And now with the service being available in the Milne Bay province, from the time a health worker calls for help its perhaps an hour until the patient then arrives in Alotau Hospital for proper treatment.
JT: So a huge difference too because you are the first and only medical helicopter rescue service in the country aren't you?
JR: That is correct yes and the statistics now for the E'esala district has improved dramatically and for two years in a row now they have been the most improved district in the whole province. And this year they are the most improved district due to the fact that they are able to get their patients now very fast into a hospital.
JT: Papua New Guinea of course is a very spread out very remote, very rugged terrain country, how difficult is it to operate a medical helicopter service in Papua New Guinea?
JR: Yea the highest mountain near Lae it is 20 minutes away from Lae and we are already at 30,000 feet. We have got the seasonal weather here we have got the rainy season which we are currently in and at times during the rainy season it is quite difficult to get out. We try very hard obviously but yes there are lots of challenges here. I will give you an example we have a pilot arriving from South Africa here two months ago to try and fly with us and that pilot saw the terrain and the weather for two weeks and basically he just said sorry this is just not for me. You know the pilot was not used to having a mountain after a mountain with wind rain fog and cloud and having all those conditions change so quickly.
JT: How do you fund this?
JR: This is quite a difficult question, I think this is quite very similar as you would have a St Johns ambulance in New Zealand with a Phillips search and rescue trust. Also started by himself and hoping to get funding later and so for us it is funded out of cash flow. As far as the Milne Bay province is concerned we have got agreements with the members of parliaments of the districts. And the Milne Bay province is the only province currently who has paid us in accordance with the agreements we have reached with them. The Morobe province we have got an agreement here with the Province government as well. This year they have found challenges of getting funds from Waigani to the province so we are at month number seven for Morobe and I have yet have to collect some payments for medivacs we have provided here. Basically I conduct the medivac and hope to get paid later sometimes it takes up to a year to get paid so it is a struggle in that respect and it would not be so much of a struggle and I could do further and further improvements if payments for those medivacs would come in faster so yea it is a struggle here.
JT: You say you hope to expand into the Highlands as well?
JR: I have plans to expand into the Highlands and my ultimate goal will be to be able to reach any village in Papua New Guinea within two hours notice. One of the improvements we have done, you know as we go along we make further and further improvements. Since about 2013 also we have introduced a toll free number. So people in villages now who have a mobile phone and have got no credits on their phone they can actually call us and we are planning on expanding that service throughout the country. So eventually any person in any village across Papua New Guinea will be able to call us and we should be able to put a nurse into a village within two hours.
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