Umba Community Health Post

Member for Menyamya, Solen Loifa, encouraged his electorate, in Morobe Province, to welcome the growth of their district.

The lack of proper roads and basic services has always been a challenge for the remote Menyamya district.

Under the leadership of their young visionary leader, the rugged face of the electorate is slowly changing.

Speaking at the opening of their state-of-the-art Umba Community Health Post on Tuesday, Loifa encouraged the people of Kome Rural LLG to allow development to take place.

With regular heavy downpours, the rough dirt tracks of Menyamya, in Morobe Province, are almost impassable. Even on sunny days, it would take three hours for a vehicle to reach Umba from Menyamya Station.

During Tuesday’s opening of the new and fully-equipped K5.1 million Umba Community Health Post, locals and health workers at Kome Rural LLG expressed their heartfelt gratitude for the facility.

The health counsellor of the Australian High Commission, Dr. Lara Andrews, outlined this during the opening of the long-awaited K5.1 million Umba Community Health Post on Tuesday, the 30^th of January.

Normally, it takes the people of Umba two days to walk to the Menyamya Health Centre to access medical help. Most times, they lose their loved ones along the way and have to turn back home.

Umba women openly wept when representatives from the Morobe Provincial Health Authority and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade handed over the K5.1 million facility.

Menyamya has always been referred to as the “back page” of Morobe; it would take over 8 hours to reach the district due to the deteriorated state of the road from Bulolo and the eroded, landslip-prone mountains of Watut and Menyamya.