Doctors say PNG's health services deteriorating

Transcript

Doctors in Papua New Guinea say the country's health services are continuing to deteriorate.

They claim it will be impossible for the country to meet any of its Millennium development goals by 2015.

Doctors say the lack of government support and corruption within the health system are to blame.

Indira Moala reports.

Australia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, recently raised concerns that PNG will not achieve the Millennium Development Goal calling for improvements in maternal health and child mortality. A number of international agencies have said PNG has sound health policies, but several factors hinder their implementation. Doctor Gilbert Hiawalyer works in PNG for the United Nations Population Fund. He says the government is not doing enough to provide resources and improve facilities.

GILBERT HIAWALYER: Facilities are run-down, hardly any health workers in there. Buildings are not maintained and there's no rooms, no water, no lights for mothers to deliver in the health centres and the government did not put any resources at all and the whole services for maternal and childhood have deteriorated I would say in the last twenty years or so.

Despite huge increases in foreign aid over the last 30 years, Dr Hiawalyer says sixty percent of mothers still give birth in the villages - a statistic which has not changed in 30 years. He asks where the money has gone.

GILBERT HIAWALYER: It's the responsibility of the government to ensure that certain services are there. People come and expect free treatment but there's no drugs available at health facilities. Improvement Support Grant is the money given to each of the member of the Parliament for his electorate - there's about ten million every year. And it states in there that two million goes to health services, but you don't see that part of the money.

Merrilee Frankish is an Australian doctor who has been working in PNG since 2011. She says the country's health services have deteriorated during her time there.

MERRILLEE FRANKISH: There are less staff being trained. The actual infrastructure is deteriorating, there's less running water, there's less power, there's less lighting, much less sanitation each year that I go. The determination is there to try to improve but they're working under very adverse conditions. The powers to be say that they're given extra money in their actual annual budget but the people on the ground say that's not so. There's a bit of dispute over the actual distribution of that money and so now those poor health centres have actually got less money than they ever had.

Dr Frankish claims about 170 people are currently being paid for positions while suspended due to investigations into corruption. A previous health minister Sasa Zibe has also claimed the Health Department's drug supply division is "riddled with corruption and ineffective". Sam Koim is leading an investigation which started in 2011.

SAM KOIM: There are various investigations into the department of health and we have arrested and charged a number of people. There were others that we couldn't pursue as well because of the lack of sufficient evidence. That department did have a lot of corruption problems.

Dr Frankish says many sick locals do not use the health centres because of the poor conditions and end up seeking witchdoctors who often charge more and give false hope. She says there are many genuine people working hard to solve the problem.

MERRILLEE FRANKISH: There's a lot of hope, there's a lot of people working really hard there. They just need support and they need not to be scratching for money.

Neither the National Department of Health nor the Minister of Health could be reached for comment.