| Business |
Another HIV/AIDS workshop
THE announced workshop in Madang
designed for department secretaries and heads of statutory
authorities could be a significant step in the fight against
HIV/AIDS.
Or it could be just another piece of window dressing, a talk-fest
in the salubrious surroundings of the coastal town.
Tagged as a “leadership support initiative”, it is designed to
develop the leaders’ response to the disease. Individual leaders
will be able to utilise personal coaching to assist them to launch
plans to fight the epidemic.
There have been very few signs of any direct involvement by senior
public servants or statutory office holders in this battle. Yet
they hold a key to the reactions of the thousands who work under
their control.
If the leaders don’t engage themselves with this issue, as with
any other, then it is nonsense to expect the 70,000 public
servants to do so. The PNG media has been pushing that message for
better than 15 years, and sadly pushing to no great effect.
This Government and some of its predecessors regularly assures the
nation that it is making a significant effort to combat HIV/AIDS.
Large sums of public money have been invested in that initiative,
and even larger sums are to be set aside for the future.
Various political figures use the fashionable language that has
grown up around the anti- HIV/AIDS fight – the declaration that
the disease is “not just a health problem” but a national issue of
which we must all “take ownership”.
The impression given is of a body of dedicated and informed
leaders doing their utmost to slow the devastating march of this
killer virus.
In addition, overseas donors have pumped millions of kina into PNG
in an attempt to fund a cutting-edge reaction to HIV/AIDS.
None has made a bigger effort in this direction than much-maligned
Australia. The Australian government’s commitment to fighting this
disease has included massive financial allocations and the
expertise of dozens of Australians well-versed in battling
HIV/AIDS.
Yet very little of this huge and now long-established effort
appears to be succeeding in its avowed aim. It is not even
possible to reliably quantify the size and therefore, the
projected impact of HIV/AIDS within our country.
We are not minimising the size of the problem. We are not
under-estimating the manpower resources and costs inevitably
involved. But neither will we play down the urgency of the matter,
shrug our shoulders and walk away from that particular problem.
The accurate identification of the numbers of this country’s
HIV/AIDS sufferers is and must continue to be the most vital
priority. There is a pervasive sense of lethargy about the current
approach that underpins the despair felt by many victims.
Three years ago, with much fanfare and issuing of glossy
pamphlets, Port Moresby General Hospital opened the Heduru ward,
dedicated to HIV/AIDS patients.
Concurrently, the nation was assured that anti-retroviral drugs
were to be released in stages, starting with the capital, and
would eventually be available throughout the country.
“Eventually” has proved to be all too accurate a word.
The majority of provincial hospitals and therefore the clinics and
aid posts throughout PNG have not seen these drugs.
Many patients have no idea of how to access them.
Many caring doctors are no better off, equally unaware of how and
where they may be obtained. There seems to be a gulf between the
patient experience and the sometimes sweeping assurances of those
engaged in fighting the disease.
We have been told of various international organisations that have
announced a commitment to providing these drugs at an accessible
cost.
The Clinton Foundation initiative is one example.
Where are these drugs?
What type of anti-retrovirals have been secured for PNG?
Are patients to receive separate doses of three or four drugs to
be taken at least twice daily, or will they be able to access the
three in one, two tablets a day medication now familiar elsewhere?
Against this unfocused background, we cannot predict if the Madang
workshop will succeed.
We are not at the beginning of PNG’s confrontation with HIV/ AIDS.
An estimate of our first case suggests 1988 as the beginning of
the battle. That’s 19 years and too many deaths ago.
 
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