Senior health workers urged to train juniors

By PERO SIMINJI
PRESIDENT of the Papua New Guinea Society of Rural and Remote Health Dr David Mills has urged senior health workers to teach their juniors.
Speaking at the medical symposium this week in Port Moresby, Mills said junior doctors and nurses must be trained well by the senior members of the medical profession.
He expressed the need to prioritise essential health care in the country for a healthy nation and said there was a big gap in terms of the availability of health officials at the provincial and district levels.
“Working in collaboration is very important as it will help us to improve our roles and also getting to know what others do to treat a sick person as well,” said Dr David, who is president of the PNG Society of Rural and Remote Health.
He said the government should improve the capability of health workers, both in the rural and urban areas, and recruit more.
He said more than half of the country’s rural hospitals have no doctors at all to attend to sicknesses. “In those instances a trained medical officer can step in the absence of a doctor and so we must equip mostly our rural hospital workers with training so as to minimise the risk of losing a life because there is no doctor,” he said.
“There must be a special rural medical training programme introduced to help those people who are dying and in need of a doctor can at least be attended to by those trained health officials residing in the rural hospitals in the country.”
He said the government must also fund more doctors so that some could go to the rural hospitals and serve there.
Health officials from across the country and abroad are attending the three-day symposium at the Stanley Hotel . It ends today.