| Business |
One-stop centres a winner
AT last Papua New Guinea is examining
a co-ordinated and sensible move to fight domestic violence.
This scourge is as debilitating and savage as its often
co-existent fellow HIV/AIDS.
It wreaks havoc across our nation. It mauls family life,
ruins relationships, destroys the future of children, demeans
women and ensures that justifiably or not, many other countries
label PNG a nation of barbarians.
Recently appointed Health Secretary Dr Clement Malau is
currently urging chief executive officers and hospital boards
across the nation to throw their weight behind an innovative
concept to help violence victims.
Labelled one-stop centres, these initiatives would be sited at
provincial hospitals. They would provide a safe and
victim-friendly environment for victims of family violence, one
that brought together the skills and talents of medical staff,
police, social workers and trained counsellors.
It is understandable that these centres would concentrate on
helping women and children since they represent by far the
greatest proportion of victims of family violence.
Accessibility is the name of the game when it comes to
establishing centres of this kind. The experience of drop-in
HIV/ AIDS centres is instructive.
Some have been remarkably successful. They have provided
counselling and practical help.
They have assisted the sick to be accepted into hospitals and
worked hard to lessen the stigma and misplaced blame that is
often the lot of the HIV/AIDS sufferer.
But other centres, sometimes set up at considerable expense,
have been less successful.
Few people living with HIV/AIDS appear to use their facilities.
It’s hard to avoid the impression that they are failing in their
intended function.
In many cases, the difference between centres lies in the
personality, training and sensitivity of the staff.
Any suggestion that those in charge look down on those who come
for help will ensure that other sufferers give a centre a wide
berth.
There is enough similarity between family violence and HIV/AIDS
and the effect each has on victims and their families and
friends for a loose parallel to be drawn.
A one-stop centre intended to combat family violence staffed
with uncaring “professionals” could be as counter productive as
a botched drop-in HIV/AIDS refuge.
Given the obvious desirability of making this idea work, there
could be a practical solution. Rather than urging the across the
board installation of a one-stop centre in each provincial
hospital, perhaps it would be better to set up four regional
centres in four suitable hospitals.
This might help ensure that the staff, who seem to us to be the
crucial issue, are the cream of the crop – highly skilled
professionals determined to achieve not only practical solutions
for victims, but to do so in a calm and caring environment.
These projected centres, in order to work effectively, must have
staff that can not only interact with victims – and that is a
complex and challenging role – but work together as a team.
Too often initiatives of this kind founder on a sticky web of
personal jealousies, exaggerated animosities and ethnic
suspicions.
In other words, we suggest these centres be treated as pilot
facilities.
They should be staffed with professionals determined to make
them work while at the same time recognising that they are there
to iron out any problems before the concept is rolled out to the
rest of PNG.
Whatever approach is taken, we believe the initiative to be the
first realistic step proposed to deal with what has become a
daily nightmare for thousands of households.
And as the report in The National yesterday made clear, the
spin-off damage of family violence is inherited from one
generation to the next.
The children of today’s violent homes are often the violent
parents of tomorrow. We cannot ignore this issue any longer.
Just as we have slowly, almost unwillingly begun to come to
grips with HIV/AIDS, we must now address domestic or family
violence.
And just as this newspaper has urged authorities to give far
greater attention to the victims of HIV/AIDS, we now urge
national acceptance of the one-stop centres concept to address
the tragedy of national family violence.
We commend Dr Malau and his advisors and offer The National’s
support for this initiative.
 
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