St John is the only emergency ambulance service available to the public and thousands of Papua New Guineans have relied on our service, said National St John Council Chair, Dame Jean Kekedo.
She was responding to the Minister for Health, Jelta Wong’s statement in Parliament asserting that St. John Ambulance had not acquitted moneys received from the Department of Health last year.
Dame Jean explained in a media statement that in 2021 St John did not receive any funding from the Department of Health.
“The last time funds were received from the NDoH was in 2020, when St John Ambulance received a total grant of K600,000. Those funds were expended in full and reports were provided to NDoH in 2020,” she said.
Dame Jean said the Department of Health confirmed to the St John management that no further acquittal reports were due to the department.
St John relies upon public funding from the government to respond to and provide free emergency services to Papua New Guineans. This is in accordance with a long-standing Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of Health and certain provincial governments.
In 2021, St John responded to more than 13,800 incidents and over 80 percent of these patients received entirely free services.
“This is reflected through quarterly reports submitted to the Department of Health. There is a proven efficient relationship with provincial health authorities through the 111 St John national ambulance control centre, which is reachable by all people nationwide,” Dame Jean stated.
She said although St John Ambulance has centres in six locations only, its services cover approximately one-third of the nation’s population, around 3.5 million people and provides aeromedical reach to all provinces.
Dame Jean stated that having a centralized emergency organization coordinate emergency response is sensible and world-standard.
Contrary to Minister Wong’s statement about not putting ‘all eggs in one basket’, Dame Jean said that ‘putting all the eggs in one basket’ can save money, be more efficient and saves lives too.
“To decentralize ambulance services is to step back 50 years ago by any world health standard, not least it would greatly more costly.
“St John’s unqualified financial audits for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 have been provided to the Department of Health. We welcome the opportunity to improve our acquittal processes, if it is not up to the standard the Minister requires.
“The National Council and I have a commitment to be the most compliant entity in the Health sector. In 2019, we engaged KPMG, and over the last five years have worked with other leading Papua New Guinea accounting firms to ensure our financial processes are world-class.”
She added that this is reflective in their independent internal and external audits, which indicated that St John is compliant with the requisite International Financial Reporting Standards. These reports are available on their website.
The National Council and the chair are more than confident and pleased with the leadership of St John Ambulance in Papua New Guinea.