| Business |
Medical research a must
RESEARCH is the key to many of the
most obvious needs of the developing world.
For a significant part of the 20th century, it was accepted
practice for the countries of the developed world to assume that
the solutions they had found to their problems would also supply
the answers to the needs of the Third World.
Many developing countries have come to regret those blanket
assumptions. The economic structure of some of them has been
radically changed at the insistence of international monetary
organisations.
This has often been done with no regard to the cultural
traditions of the people, on occasion resulting in uprisings and
even civil war.
The developed world has made giant strides in the development of
medicine and it has done so through medical research.
Developed countries have been able to accomplish this progress
by the injection of huge sums of money into their research
laboratories and into their tertiary education systems.
With a highly skilled medical fraternity, the will to push the
medical envelope ever further and the money to lubricate the
entire system, these countries have created a whole new world of
medical achievements.
The Third World has often been left out of this picture. The
importance of local research has often been ignored by the
international community. So too has the need to assist in the
provision of overseas medical expertise, equipment and even
basic medical supplies.
One of the major outcomes of the now highly regarded PNG Medical
Symposia is a heightened recognition of the peculiar needs of
developing countries and of PNG in particular. A great deal of
innovative medical research has been undertaken in our country
and the results have provided many material benefits for our
people.
Now there is a need to expand and deepen that process.
PNG faces a population explosion and we no longer occupy a
forgotten and isolated corner of the vast Pacific Ocean.
In this day of fast transportation, we are as open as any
other countries to plagues and pandemic.
Diseases that many had thought conquered have risen again to
threaten our communities.
Malaria and tuberculosis are again accounting for a significant
number of PNG deaths.
Other infections have come in their wake, adding to their
impact.
A late arrival by world standards, HIV/AIDS now poses a threat
to PNG that is hard to quantify, and all the more frightening as
a result.
The nature of our people and the geography of our country,
combined with an inadequate rural health service, means that HIV
infection statistics are still a matter of educated guesswork.
We need the assistance of the developed world to research into
and conquer these health threats.
The anti-retroviral drugs that have extended the lives of
hundreds of thousands of HIV sufferers around the world since
their production in 1996, were finally distributed in our
country in meaningful proportions some three months ago and at
zero cost to virus infected victims.
Many Papua New Guineans wonder if that gap of 11 years was
inevitable, a gap that saw the deaths of many of our people.
But let’s look to the future.
The theme of this symposium centres on oral health and tertiary
care of head and neck injuries.
Dentistry and the importance of oral health have been in sharp
decline for at least two decades in PNG.
Very few dental graduates have been produced and dental clinics
at major hospitals have been condemned to battle on with
equipment worthy of technological museums.
It would be accurate to say that the oral health of many of our
people is little short of abysmal.
In a restrained comment, the president of the PNG Medical
Society Dr Mathias Sapuri this week described oral health and
tertiary care of head and neck injuries as “poorly addressed”.
This year has seen the first graduates from the Bachelor in
Dental Surgery course at
UPNG’s School of Medicine.
We hope that this significant event will in tandem with the 2007
Medical Symposium provide the stimulus so clearly need in these
fields.
We urge the PNG Government to fully support the outcomes of the
symposium in the interests of our people and commend the Medical
Society for its initiative.
 
|
