Nancy serves remote Menyamya

Having better health services is everyone’s need and many rural communities in PNG are lacking this basic service, remote Menyamya in Morobe is one of the many.

Many communities in Menyamya are out of reach, tucked away in its own mountainous paradise. But despite this nurse Nancy Kingal, 34, from Western Highlands has chosen to live in Menyama providing healthcare services in the remote communities for the past 15 years.

“There are better services where I come from, but I choose to stay here because I love serving in the unreached and remotest areas. Seeing the smile on the people’s faces gives me so much satisfaction and motivates me to do what I do, especially to serve the vulnerable children in the community,” said Nancy.

She is a community health worker and serves as the Nurse-in-Charge of Maternal Child Health in Kapo sub-health center.

A widow with four boys, Nancy’s passion to help people started when she was a student at the Gaubim Community Health Training school on Karkar Island in Madang.

It was there that she lit a candle and made a promise to serve people wherever she was posted to. She graduated in 2008 and was posted to Menyamya where she spent nine years in doing mobile clinic. Four years ago, she was transferred to Kapo sub-health center to take charge of MCH.

Nancy’s daily role includes coordinating foot patrols, child delivery, antenatal checks, immunization, family planning and treating out- patients. With no ambulance at the health centers the hurdles she faces daily is huge, including no electricity, shortage of workforce, geographical settings and weather conditions.

But all these challenges have not stopped Nancy and her dedicated team from bringing health services to the doorsteps of communities.

‘’Sometimes I can walk for three to five days, resting whenever it gets dark with my vaccines and the help of vaccine carriers to reach the communities so that the communities get vital health services, especially the mothers and babies,’’ she said.

Nancy and her team ensure children under five-years old are immunized as part of the Accelerated Immunization and Health System Strengthening program funded by the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and Gavi-the Vaccine Alliance with technical support from the World Health Organization, UNCEF and World Vision as the implementing partner in Morobe.

The commitment and perseverance shown by Nancy reflects the type of leader she is in her own profession. She is among many other Papua New Guinean women in leadership roles that strive to deliver better outcomes to benefit ordinary Papua New Guineans.

“Although I’m a woman and despite all the challenges, I still leave my children at home and take the risk because I love my job and it is very rewarding for me when the communities I go to utter a word of ‘thank you’. That always means a lot to me, just to see smiles on their faces peoples,” Nancy added.

In PNG, women take on different roles by contributing enormously towards the growth of the country’s economy and being playmakers and bread winners for their families, communities and society.

Therefore, in celebrating World Immunization Week this year, let us celebrate women and men like Nancy who work in such challenging environments with a huge heart and smile to selflessly serve some of the most forgotten people of this nation.

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