A local woman from the Finschhafen District in Morobe Province is calling on their local leaders of Parliament, specifically Raibo Paita and the Morobe Provincial Health Authority, to coordinate efforts in restoring basic medical services. The community is reporting a critical shortage of essential medicine, as well as the unavailability of X-ray and ultrasound services.
The Burden of Seeking Care
Speaking to InsidePNG, the woman said that seeking treatment at Angau Memorial Provincial Hospital in Lae has become very expensive. Patients arriving from Finschhafen frequently find that medicines are out of stock and diagnostic equipment is non-functional.
According to the local source, patients are regularly issued prescriptions to purchase their own supplies from private pharmacies and referred to private hospitals for scans because Angau’s ultrasound machine is non-operational.
“Finschhafen’s Butaweng Health Center couldn’t provide the X-ray and Ultra Sound services for the people to have access to due to so many reasons including the continuous blackouts,” she said.
Critical Shortages at Butaweng
Community members say that Butaweng is a major health center that requires urgent attention to prevent the need for nerve-wrecking travel to Lae. Currently, even basic consumables like Panadol and IV fluids are reportedly unavailable, and a lack of health officers and diagnostic tools has led to preventable deaths.
“Our leaders supposed to look into it. Why do we have to come to Lae here at the Angau Memorial Provincial Hospital and die? From Finschhafen up to Lae is really far and it costs us K100 per passenger by boat. In an emergency situation to seek medical treatment, we sometimes hire the boat at a cost of K1000.”
Her concern deepened as she told InsidePNG that delayed travels due to weather circumstances and funding constraints has led to some lives being lost along the way.
This situation has been a recurrence for many years where health services decline and people have to find their own way to seek treatment.
“Sometimes we lost lives along the way to Lae from Finschaffen due to bad weather. We could’t afford air transport because it’s very expansive. We just couldn’t afford. Due to these reasons, many locals have lost their lives because they couldn’t get the medical treatment they need,” said the woman.
“Our leaders must step in immediately and attend to our needs for health services and fix what is lacking in our District and LLG,” she added.
Editor’s Note: Rainbo Paita, who recently became the Governor for Morobe Province following the untimely passing of former Governor Luther Wenge, continues to serve as the member for Finschhafen District.