Aid posts lacking in remote areas

IT was revealed during the third day of the national health implementation plan meeting on Wednesday that PNG was without aid posts services in most of its rural settings.
According to the National Health Plan 2011-20 volume 2 (Part A), statistics for years 2001-08, showed there was a total of  2,672 operational aid posts in the country.
Four new aid posts were built, two in the New Guinea Island, one in Momase and one in Southern.
The lack of maintenance, basic medical supplies, health workers, government funding and demographic locations, had seen the closure of 776 aid posts in the same year.
The meeting yesterday when deliberating on the creation of community health post in ward areas and their accessibility with the use of a new concept, Geomaps, admitted that almost 29% of aid posts were closed.
A speaker from the Department of Provincial Affairs said that aid posts were the closest government service to people and now that most were run down, the church-run and non-governmental-run clinics or aid posts were the only forms of health service to people in remote areas.
“How are we going to link these service providers with the Health Department in working towards achieving our national plan goals?” he asked.
The meeting was told that the CHP were old concepts which needed to use existing infrastructure and utilise men and women on the ground to be multi-skilled in enabling the three focus area’s of child health and mothers health and health promotion.