‘Small but significant’ is how Mollen Molki, acting chief commissioner of St John Ambulance, PNG, described the recent fundraising charity ball.
The longest serving pre-hospital care provider in PNG last Saturday reached out to the community it serves, for help.
The annual charity fundraising ball at the Grand Palace Seafood Restaurant in Port Moresby saw a good representation, particularly by the business communities.
Molki thanked them all, calling them true champions and true friends of St John’s Ambulance.
St John Ambulance has been in PNG for almost 60 years now and acts as the first medical response to the communities.
St John’s Ambulance responds to at least 900 cases every month and almost 10, 000 in a year.
Seeing from other countries, Matthew Cannon, executive support officer and paramedic at St John Ambulance, said the expansion of this service will highly impact statistics in PNG, such as decrease in mortality rates.
But this however, is not possible given the lack of resources due to funding issues.
The reverse call had a good response through pledges in cash and kind, including 10,000L of diesel valuing approximately K22,000, donated by Bige Petroleum. They also got an invite from radio station FM100 to share on its talk-back show.
Each table at the fundraising was sold for K10,000.