St John Ambulance Baruni Opens

St John Ambulance this week opened the latest Ambulance centre at Baruni within the PNG CR premises in Port Moresby.

The Member for Moresby Northwest, Lohia Boe Samuel, officiated at the ceremony. Present to witness the occasion was Member for Moresby Northeast, John Kaupa, City Manager for NCDC, Bernard Kipit, NCDC Board Council Members, LLG councilors, St. and John Ambulance Commissioner Rigona Rita.

According to Commissioner, Rigona Rita, this is the first time such an important service is opened in the Port Moresby Northwest area and it will cover some of the Motu-Koitabu villages and parts of Central Province.

The centre include a furnished training office, a pre-hospital training centre and a fully kitted ambulance manned by highly trained personnel. 

Commissioner Rita said that St John responds to close to almost 100 emergencies each day, adding that at any one time all 10 ambulances around the country are responding to emergencies. 

He said with the size of the population St John Ambulance needs to find more ambulances to service the NCD, Motu Koita villages and some parts of Central Province.

“St John is doing everything it can to respond to every emergency call. But the reality is with the size of the population we need more ambulances.” Commissioner Rita said.
Therefore, aside from their own fundraising St John relies more on the government to provide such vital emergency service to the people. 

Commissioner Rita added that with the governor announcing for the construction of the new 500-bed Port Moresby Hospital even more ambulances will be needed.
“An ambulance will be stationed at the new Baruni station and on board all of St John Ambulances emergency’s highly trained ambulance professionals. 

“The professionals carry specialized equipment like the cardiac defibrillator.” 
NCDC City Manager Bernard Kipit who stood in for Governor for NCD, Powes Parkop acknowledged St. John’s partnership with National Capital District Commission for many years, thus NCD has assisted St. John Ambulance in cash, in kind and in many other ways.

“St John Ambulance is a government statutory body but it receives no funding from the government, though it plays an important significant role in the community. Because if there is any emergency issues in the community that requires special attention, the first people on the scene will be the St John Ambulance,” Mr Kipit said. 

He added that as such it’s a call on the community, not only the government but also private sector to assist as the PNGCR has done with the setup of the Baruni SJA station within their yard.

Eric Yawas, Senior Business Development and Government Affairs Manager spoke on behalf of the host company PNG CR Services. 

He said giving space for SJA is a great initiative for them giving back to the community and they appreciated the move by the CEO of St John Ambulance, Matt Cannon in collaborating with them.

“Through all our projects across the country, what we do is we work in partnership with the landowners, local authorities. We are not there for the business but we work in partnership with them to ensure there is significant benefit,” Mr Yawas said. 

“We hope that going forward the Baruni community and other smaller companies aside from PNGCRA within the area and we hope this facility provides the health benefits.”

Mr Boe, while appreciating SJA for their services to the people, he noted that according to record, in the last one year, SJA has responded to 3781 incidents in the Nort West including the neighbouring Motu-Koita villages of Baruni, Tatana and Hanuabada totaling up to 30,000 people. 

“I know that the good governor has been helpful to St John in providing help in the past and I’m making a commitment from the office of the Moresby Northwest we will be donating an ambulance to make it two ambulances to help St John’s work in the community,” he said

Author: 
Frieda Kana