Health

Arawa Hospital officially opens

From 2015 to 2018, the Australian Government provided K33.8 million for the upgrade of the then Arawa Health Centre to a district hospital. Under the partnership arrangement, the Autonomous Bougainville Government purchased equipment for the hospital at a value of K4 million.

The hospital was officially opened on Friday, June 29th, by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, John Momis, and Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, Bruce Davis.

Healthy lifestyle choices encouraged

The PNG Rugby Football League was present at the school to create awareness among the students.

Present were Hunters players William Mone, Patrick Morea, Watson Boas and Moses Meninga.

Accompanying the boys was the PNG Orchids vice-captain, Della Audema.

The players focused on topics like food nutrition, importance of hydration and healthy lifestyle.

The team spoke to the school during recess with Moses Meninga summarising the talks and encouraging the children to be healthy and active. This is so they can be able to perform to the best of their ability.

Economy will flourish if people are healthy

A country’s economy will flourish if its people are healthy.

These sentiments were shared by Health Department’s Branch Manager for Policy, Planning and Lead planner for the APEC 2018 Taskforce, Agnes Pawiong.

While business, trade and economic growth is expected to dominate discussions during the APEC Summit, other players vital for economic growth will be equally discussed.

Amongst these, health is one sector that will bring forth policies focused to the discussion table for the 21 economies to deliberate on.

Proper checks needed for foreign medical 'experts'

Member for Wabag, Dr Lino Tom, raised this issue today during the Parliament session.

Dr Tom said a lot of concern has been raised regarding the quality of work from foreign medical experts.

"It is a strict requirement elsewhere in the world for doctors to be accredited properly to be able to work in foreign countries."

He said currently the country has no medical board examination.

A board like that would have properly examined overseas trained medical professionals coming into the country, and conducted appropriate board accreditation examinations.

APEC seeks out Health Tech Game Changers

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2018 APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education, or ASPIRE Prize, under the theme Smart Technologies for Healthy Societies.

Maprik hospital renovation slow: MP

In 2014, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill visited Maprik district with a promise to allocate monies to refurbish the hospital.

About K18 million was first allocated for the refurbishment. Stakeholders, including the district and the government, had allocated K9 million each for the project.

Four years later, Member for Maprik, John Simon, says the pace is not satisfying.

Simon had recently visited the site and despite a few hurdles, he says work needs to go on.

Dire implications in health sector outlined

Shortages in human resource, unavailability of supplies and inadequate infrastructure have led to very low access and utilisation rates.

According to the World Bank Group report, in 2016 only a third of women had access to modern contraceptive methods, 54 percent of pregnant women attended at least one antenatal care visit and only 40 percent of women delivered with the assistance of a skilled birth attendant.

More worryingly, coverage of basic health services such as immunisation is declining.

Invest more in health: Report

The report is part of a new biannual series, The Papua New Guinea Update, which aims to analyse key economic developments and provide an in-depth examination of a selected development issue.

The first series, titled Reinforcing Resilience, focuses on health in PNG. 

Comparing PNG to other developing countries in Asia, who will see a decline in the number of the working population, Papua New Guinea will see an increase in the next 50 or so years.

Kaupa outlines health projects for electorate

Local Member John Kaupa recently announced the health services improvement projects that will be initiated in the electorate.

Kaupa said he has started dialogue with the Health Minister to roll out satellite clinics in major settlement sites, and raise the standard of the current Six-Mile Clinic to district hospital status.

He also said major settlements will be subdivided to roll out essential social services for improved living standards.

Unhealthy goods to be banned from schools

Minister for Health Sir Puka Temu made this announcement today at the official opening of a TB clinic at the Port Moresby General Hospital.  

Sir Puka said PNG has been ranked very low in nutritional standards and the Government has taken measures to fight this.

He added that our young generation must be given affordable meals and live a healthy lifestyle in order to get proper education.

“These are our generation that will be leaders tomorrow and must be given utmost care in terms of nutritional diets.”