The Anglican Health Services are facing massive scale down of services as their funding from the Christian Health Services PNG has been cut and have not received funding since July this year.
Vocal Governor for Oro, Garry Juffa when meeting with the executives of the Anglican Health Services in Oro said the scaling down of services will affect more than 90,000 in the province.
Anglican Health Services cater for more than 50% of the population in the province.
“Scale down will mean that only most urgent matters will be dealt with and deliveries.”
He said people affected have had to spend substantial funds to travel into town to receive services.
“The costs range from K40 to K1000 depending on distance and difficulty of terrain and remoteness.”
Chairman of the Anglican Health Services Roger Baboa also highlighted the plight of the Anglican Church Services to the Administration and the Provincial Government.
Baboa advised that he had no choice but to consider shutting down most of the Church’s services and scaling down to a skeleton crew unless he had funding of at least K250,000 to continue for the year.
Meanwhile, Juffa pledged to assist and would call an urgent PEC to deliberate and identify funds available but lamented the lack of funds in the provinces coffers and said that funds for other programs under the PSIP would have to be diverted but that this was not an issue as his people’s lives were more important.
Juffa stated that the added burden was placing provinces with small internal revenues and lack of National Government support like Oro under even more pressure.
“Provinces such as Oro have poor internal revenue and have not received much of their funds due from the National Government over the years to the tune of K400m. This is heartless and totally pathetic behavior by the National Government towards its own citizens and its people.” Juffa expressed with great frustration.
He added that his office would also not be celebrating the 41 years Independence while situations like this existed in his province and the majority of his people faced difficulties in accessing the most basic services.
He has advised the two Open Members to consider the people’s health rather than spending substantial amounts of monies on celebrations for a sour Independence with the country facing serious health and financial crisis.