A newly appointed 10-member Board of the National Capital District Provincial Health Authority (NCDPHA) was sworn in at the National Department of Health (NDoH) Headquarters in Port Moresby yesterday.
Members of the board include Chairman Daniel Waswas, Deputy Chairman Hubert Namani, Dr. Dora Lenturut-Kata representing NDoH, Yiannis Nicolaou, Justin Tan, Reverend Jacob Kila, Dika Toua, Mirriam Dogimab, Luke Anthony and National Capital District (NCD) City Manager and ex-officio member, Ravu Frank. Two members of the new board – Toua and Rev. Kila - were not present on this occasion.
Senior management of NDoH, the NDoH legal team, NCDPHA CEO Dr. Steven Yennie, and directors and staff of the NCDPHA witnessed the swearing-in ceremony.
This is the second NCDPHA Governance Board after a three-year tenure for the initial and first board ended in December 2022. Members of this new board will also serve for a term of three years.
The PHA board’s role is to provide governance oversight and direction to the CEO and the management team to oversee all health service delivery in the National Capital District including Motu Koita.
Health Minister Dr. Lino Tom congratulated and welcomed the new board on behalf of the Health Ministry and Department while emphasizing the need for good governance.
Dr. Lino said scarcity of resources is a universal problem including in PNG and even in Australia but good governance makes the difference.
“If you can spend those scarce resources in areas of need, then the impact you will get will be far greater than spending resources in areas that are not needed. One of the reforms that we are trying to bring is to have good governance in place,” said Dr. Lino.
Dr. Lino said the PHA system is a new concept and there are still doubts and complaints about PHAs and their functions including in Cabinet. He added that a significant number of our leaders believe that PHAs are not working in the country.
“The challenge is quite daunting for me to try to explain to non-medical people the importance of PHAs and that the PHA structure has been put in place after extensive research into that space.
"It’s quite difficult to convince people. It will make my job easier if we start having PHAs functioning as they ultimately should,” Minister Tom said.
“What I’m advocating in Parliament is that when you have good board members, when you have a functional and competent board, PHAs should work, because basically, the mechanism oversight is that the PHA respond to the board and in the PHA system now, the oversight mechanism is the board. If the board is not functional, it’s quite difficult to realize the dreams we have in the health plan.
“We have a very competent board here,” said Dr. Lino.
Dr. Lino reminded the new board that it is important to work with local leaders because nothing gets done without them. He directed this message to all PHAs around the country – to work with their local leaders.
“They have to be part of your team so that they can advocate for you in terms of funding, and they will advocate for you for special projects in Parliament. This is my message for a good and competent board for all PHAs in the country.”