Adviser: Transport costs a main hurdle

GULF provincial health adviser Ben Bal says transportation costs to deliver services are a major challenge.
“Gulf is a geographically challenging province because it is mostly accessed by sea and air,” he said.
“And we see the cost of transportation is higher than the cost of service delivery itself.”
Bal said during the three-day national health conference in Port Moresby they had not received any grants such as the district service improvement programme fund from the Government.
He said financial support was needed to deliver services to the people.
He said they were also facing a shortage of skilled workers, gender-balanced staffing for aid posts and the retention of skilled workers.
“The most important resource to manage is the human resource and we have only have three doctors, we don’t have many midwives and community health workers to serve in the 80 aid posts because the organisational structure we are using is outdated,” Bal said.
They will visit well-performing marine provinces such as Milne Bay to see how they operate.