Tuberculosis disease surge in suburban Port Moresby

 Concerns about increase in the spread of the air borne Tuberculosis disease has reached heightened level.

Not just in Port Moresby but in the Southern Highlands and West New Britain.

Port Moresby General Hospital struggling to administer specialist health care demand

Press Release 

PMGH is the Country's Level 6 referral specialist Hospital. It’s role is to provide specialised service which other Provincial Hospitals can not provide. 

PMGH is struggling to meet the specialist health service demand of the country because it is carrying the primary and Secondary health care load of the City’s growing population, including Central and Gulf Provinces. 

NCDPHA and Central PHA do not have a designated Level 5 hospital, there is no Level 4 health facility for Port Moresby North East and Moresby South Electorates. 

Central Province Level 4 District Hospitals need major facility upgrade equipped and appropriate manpower in place to serve the growing population. 

Until such time NCDPHA Level 5 hospital and its District Level 4 hospitals and Level 5 Central PHA hospital and its level 4 District Hospitals are upgraded, and Kerema Hospital upgraded to standards, PMGH will continue to take on the load.

This is reflected by overcrowding at PMGH Emergency Department, Overcrowding at the labor ward and babies delivered on the floor, overcrowding at outpatients, Radiology and Pathology.

PMGH while managing the primary and secondary care load it has stepped up to provide specialized service in Cardiac through the establishment of a Cath Lab, Kidney program to be established and cancer services to be established. PMGH continues to provide specialized care in Neurosurgery, Orthopaedic, Obstetrics and Gynaecology etc.

The Government has responded to the demand through the proposed establishment of a designated Level 5 Central Provincial Hospital and Level 5 NCDPHA hospital. 

Moresby South Level 4 Hospital will soon open to provide services. Taurama Military Hospital expansion plan is in progress.

We anticipate that by 2030 PMGH will offload some primary and some Secondary Care to those hospitals so PMGH concentrates on delivering specialized services. 

As a teaching and research Hospital, aligned to the proposed Medical and Health Science University, PMGH will maintain some primary and secondary care for training of undergraduate and post graduate students.

The public will continue to see crowded outpatients and emergency department unless the NCDPHA, Gulf PHA and Central PHA step up to take on some loads.

For now, PMGH is carrying primary and secondary care for the 3x PHA which you find overcrowding in PMGH.

Two urban clinics open in Lae

Deputy PM and Lae Open MP John Rosso makes his remarks 

It gives me great pleasure to join Health Minister Dr Lino Tom, Housing Minister Dr Kobby Bomareo, Health Secretary Dr Osborne Liko, Deputy Australian Head of Mission to PNG Dr Joanne Loundes and the Morobe Provincial Health Authority to officially opened the Tent City and West Taraka Urban Clinics yesterday.

For Tent City, the brand new Level 3 clinic will provide post natal care, labour delivery, dental service, x-ray, surgery and general outpatient services.

It comes with six brand new staff houses and will managed and staffed by the Lutheran Health Services. For the first time in PNG, about 90% of church health workers are now be paid by National government's Alesco payroll system.

A big thankyou to the Australian Government for funding this vital infrastructures, the Marape PANGU-led government, National Department of Health and also our partners the MoPHA, Lae City Authority and the ELCPNG for providing the land on which the facility is being built on.

Partnership is the way forward for development in PNG and we are grateful to have our local stakeholders and international partners working hand in hand to deliver high quality and much needed service delivery infrastructure to our people.

This facility will now ease up the backlog of patients that go all the way to ANGAU Hospital for treatment. It will greatly help our people of Tent City, Bumayong and the surrounding areas in accessing quality health care.

At West Taraka, a similar facility was opened. The West Taraka urban clinic will serve more than ten thousand people in the Taraka area.

The Lae City Authority also bought and presented a brand new 15-seater bus to be used in transporting staff at both Tent City and West Taraka clinics.

According to Huon Gulf MP and Minister for Community Development, Youth & Religion Hon. Jason Peter, this is by far the biggest project in West Taraka for almost forty-years and the people are grateful for this gift from the people and government of Australian.

Bikpla thankyou to the government and taxpayers of Australia for being our biggest development partner. They have invested not only in the health sector, but also in other vital sectors in our nation's development.

The onus is now on the people to look after the facility and staff for the benefit of everyone including our children. Anyone who vandalise the property and harass nursing staff will be dealt severely by police.

If we cry for better government services, we must also take ownership and look after these very important facilities. Not just the health facilities, but schools, classrooms, roads, street lights etc.

Plans are in place to make Tent City urban clinic become our district hospital for Lae where we will have a resident doctor and medical specialists serving our people.

I would like to commend the MoPHA Board Chairman David Wissink, CEO Dr Kipas Binga and his team of good board and management who are working tirelessly to ensure health services reach the ten districts of Morobe.

We need more medical doctors and nursing officers to manned the new health facilities. With only fifty doctors graduating at the UPNG medical school every year, there's a great demand for specialist medical professionals across the country.

The Marape-Rosso government is equally concerned about this and the appointment of Dr Lino is no mistake as he is working tirelessly to ensure this very important sector gets the full backing of this government.

Many people would say Tent City, Bumayong, Igam and West Taraka are in the Nawaeb and Huon Gulf districts respectively, but we all belong to Lae City.

It's not about the land boundary, we are all part of a greater Lae and the LCA is committed to ensure we deliver state of the art and long lasting infrastructures to our people of Lae.

We will also have a brand new urban clinic for Butibam and Milfordhaven which will be fully funded by the taxpayers of Lae through LCA. That is because of transperancy in managing our funds and revenues under LCA.

LCA is also investing in St Johns Ambulance service so that our people are given the best pre-hospital services on their way to get medical treatment.

These services have been deprived for our people for many years until now we have good leadership in our city.

The Tent City barracks to Bumayong road concrete sealing will commence soon once the designs are complete. Tent City street roads will be sealed after Kaisa.

The LCA is partnering with the Huon Gulf DDA to build a brand new police station for West Taraka, fixing their street roads and also assisting long term residence obtain their land titles.

It's not going to happen overnight, but we are committed in ensuring that we deliver these projects on time for the betterment of our communities.

Thank you everyone and we look forward to continue develop Lae City in partnership with good prudent management by ensuring that we continue to lay foundation of good management, governance and transperancy to lure more development partners.

Once again, thankyou Australian Government for your generosity in funding this vital projects. The Marape-Rosso PANGU government for the foresight and vision and all our stakeholders and development partners in ensuring these projects are delivered on time with no variations.

UPNG Professor collaborates with world scientists to manufacture HIV medicine

This is a report by freelance journalist Cyril Gare.

The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) School of Natural and Physical Sciences (SNPS) is close to producing tablets from hopeaphenol, a chemical compound that was extracted from a PNG plant, that can be used as treatment for People Living With HIV AIDS (PLWH).  

This is good news for the world especially PLWH population in PNG as hopeaphenol comes as ‘God’s Salvation II’ for humanity. 

Last month the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) published the hopeaphenol research findings internationally effectively citing it as a leading candidate for treatment of Covid and AIDS viruses. 

Professor Topul Rali Univeristy of Papua New Guinea 

Hopeaphenol has been a joint collaboration been 17 scientists from around the globe including PNG’s very own Professor of Chemistry, Topul Rali since 1996 when he first collected and sent samples of the PNG plant – anisoptera thurifera to Griffith University in Australia for analysis and testing against targeted diseases in a drug discovery program. 

ASM acknowledged and gave credit to these 17 who operated out of: 

• The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; 

• Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada;

• Jonathan Lax Immune Disorders Treatment Center, Philadelphia Field Initiating Group for HIV-1 Trials, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA;

• Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia; and

• School of Natural and Physical Sciences, The University of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.  

Only a fortnight ago, UPNG Chemistry fourth year students during a lab practical under the strict supervision of Prof. Rali, extracted hopeaphenol from anisoptera thurifera leaves.

“From 400 grams of leaves, we were able to extract 1.933 grams of crystals. This is very exciting, an extraordinary find because you do not usually get this much compound from a single plant extract. 

“Also, we’ve not tried the bark and wood of this tree yet to determine which parts of the tree has high hopeaphenol content and also to evaluate the total amount of the compound in an Anisoptera thurifera tree,” Prof. Rali said adding that from the 1.933 grams of crystals, 39 tablets can be made for a PLWH patient, that’s more than a month’s dozes. 

He is optimistic about clinical trial on PLWH – to be orally administered alongside the current ART (antiretroviral treatment) so that further evaluations can be obtained from there. 

Already the SNPS has approved a budget of more than K300,000 for the purchase of two scientific equipment that will help produce hopeaphenol tablets at lab scale. The School’s request is before the UPNG Vice Chancellor, Prof. Frank Griffin for approval. 

In an interview with Alphonse Bariasi, features editor of The National newspaper on Tuesday – May 16, 2023 (see full report in Friday’s Weekend edition of The National), Prof. Rali agreed with the Prime Minister, James Marape that PNG can be the richest black nation however, without listening to scientists and putting the money down in research and scientifically driven projects such as this innovative hopeaphenol project, this dream would remain a far cry of any Government in the eve of the country’s 50th golden jubilee anniversary. 

Prof. Rali said under the National Research Agenda (NRA) the Government has created the Research, Science and Technology Secretariat (RSTS) since 2014 and its time the Government ‘walk the talk’ by turning the RSTS into a CSIRO equivalent by investing around a billion kina or more every year in R&D projects that would revolutionize the economy and spin the wheel of change.  

Yes PNG can end Tuberculosis

Yes, We Can End TB 

In Papua New Guinea, World Tuberculosis (TB) Day is an important reminder of the urgent need to address the country's TB situation. 

TB is caused by bacteria known as Mycobacterium Tuberculosis and predominantly affects the lungs. It spreads through the air when a person with lung TB coughs, sneezes, or spits. Just a few germs are enough to infect someone. So living and working in overcrowded conditions is an important social risk factor for the easy spread of TB. 

Individuals infected with TB bacteria have a 5-10% risk of contracting the disease in their lifetime. However, the risk is higher among those with weakened immune systems, such as people living with HIV, malnourishment, diabetes, or cigarette smokers.

Despite being preventable and treatable, TB remains the world's top infectious killer, with 10 million people worldwide falling ill with TB each year. 

In Papua New Guinea, the disease is a critical public health problem, with the country reporting 30,000 new cases each year.

An important challenge in TB management is that many people often turn to local witch doctors or sorcerers first for treatment and present late for medical attention. 

Symptoms of TB include cough for more than 2 weeks associated with bloody sputum, chest pains, weakness, weight loss, fever, and night sweats. 

TB is curable, and treatment is free. Standard TB treatment is a course of 4 TB medications daily for 6 months.  The treatment cures the disease, reduces transmission, prevents drug resistance, relapse and death. 

Picture by World Bank

Poor compliance with treatment remains a challenge due to the long duration of treatment. An important program that we all can be a part of in our families and communities where we have TB is to partner with TB patients and help them take their medications via the Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse (DOTS) Program.  

By raising awareness, empowering communities, and offering support, Papua New Guinea can unite in the fight against TB - Yes, We Can End TB!

#TBDay #PNG #tuberculosis

Hospital staff needs contact for ICU patient relatives

"Seeking assistance from the public  to locate family of ICU patient"

Port Moresby General Hospital is appealing to the general public to help locate the immediate family or relatives of a patient who is currently admitted at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

The elderly patient who is currently admitted at the Port Moresby General Hospital Intensive Care Unit (PMGH ICU)

The patient, whose personal details are still unknown, is a female believed to be in her 60s who had sought treatment at the hospital on Monday, 6th of February, 2023.

The patient was found to be in severe distress with shortness of breath and collapsed soon after arrival at the Emergency Department.

She was intubated at the Emergency Department and later transferred to the ICU where she is currently being managed.

The patient had no guardian with her when she came to the hospital and had no form of ID on her.

The patient was diagnosed with severe asthma at the time of admission and although she is stable, she has still not regained consciousness.

 

The Medical and Social Works Department had been consulted to locate the immediate family or relatives of the patient. However, staff could not do much as there is very little or no information to help in the search for the patient’s family.

PMGH is appealing to the public to come forward with any information if you recognize the elderly patient and to contact the switchboard on 324 8200 or 324 8100.

NCD Governor welcomes construction of new Central Province Hospital

Putting politics aside, Governor Powes Parkop attended the launch of the new 300 bed hospital arriving early with other politicians.

His media unit says he was elated about the invitation and therefore attended the ceremony at Bautama along the Magi Highway.

Governor Powes Parkop has welcomed and expressed his full support and that of NCD towards the establishment of the hospital for the Central people outside Port Moresby. 

His media unit reports that by rubbing shoulders with his Central Province counterpart Robert Agarobe it was maturity in political leadership.

A picture of their golden handshake has been shared and acknowledged widely on social media.

Parkop and Agarobe have had quite a sour relationship based on their stance and issues regarding land demarcation, GST shares, markets and provincial capital.

Endorsing the hospital Parkop said with the increased population of Port Moresby the , it was totally inadequate to cater for the health needs for its increasing population as well as that of Central and Gulf Provinces.. 

Governor Parkop said the launch was a momentous event for Central Province in that for the first they will have a major facility of their own available in the first instance to Central Province and subsequently to our people of NCD and the rest of the country. 

“ I look forward to more such facilities both public and private can be built so eventually the concept of two great cities co-existing side by side can become a reality . 

When completed, he said, the new hospital will help to shoulder the skies of the provinces together, adding it will relieve the stress on medical workers and end relatives  camping outside Port Moresby General Hospital awaiting for the sick relatives. 

“This initiative has ushered in a new era for NCD, Central Province and the Country and on behalf of all our people in NCD, I commend Prime Minister Honourable James Marape and Governor Robert Agarobe for their leadership in getting this project started. It is I hope a start of a new journey in the right direction and I call on everyone to support this initiative and journey.”

NCD is expected to build a five star hospital at Gerehu (Tete) and this should relieve the strain on Port Moresby General Hospital as well so it can concentrate as a teaching and specialist referral hospital.

Family planning outreach program extends to Hela

Marie Stopes PNG (MSPNG) continues to roll out its program as it recently opened a new family planning outreach program in Hela province last Friday.

The service delivery program is a new outreach based program in Hela that is supported by the Oil Search Foundation.

MSPNG launches family planning outreach program in Hela

Oil Search Foundation Hela Provincial Development Manager Rodney Ingersoll said the launch represents a major partnership exercise between MSPNG and the Hela Provincial Health Authority (HPHA) and is focused on supporting maternal child health care needs in the province under the Wok Bung Wantaim (WBW) initiative.

“Lessons learned will be shared widely in a united effort towards improving front line service delivery,” said Ingersoll.

It is understood that PNG continues to have some of the poorest health outcomes in the Asia Pacific region, particularly in terms of maternal and child health and family planning is considered as one of the most cost effective interventions to improve maternal health and promote sustainable population growth in PNG.

HPHA Director Doris Anton said that due to many social and political issues including the recent El Nino effects in the region, many people and business are discouraged to visit Hela.

“It is the responsibility of everyone to take ownership and look after such projects that come into the province.

Anton added that the ownership serves as a key factor in accelerating the growth and development of individuals, family units and the communities.

According to MSPNG, through the National Family Planning Training Program (NFPTP), MSPNG will train and support the health workers and the NFPTP provides workers with the knowledge and skills to provide quality, confidential and friendly family planning services in the various health facilities.

MSPNG Service Delivery Director Loretta Bele said that the MSPNG outreach team in Hela will serve all communities in the province, following a service delivery plan developed in collaborating with the provincial health authorities.

“All services provided by the outreach teams are free of charge,” she added.