Aussies chip in on health care

THE Australian government will support Papua New Guinea’s commitment to establish a new, independent health procurement authority.
PNG’s Minister for Health and HIV Jamie Maxtone-Graham agreed to establish a health procurement authority this week.
The authority will manage all national large-scale health procurements such as medical supplies and infrastructure.
“The procurement authority will demonstrate value-for-money by ensuring that contracts go to international competitive tenders and are awarded to quality-assured organisations,” Baxter said.
“This will mean more money will be available each year for other rural health needs.
“Establishing an independent procurement authority is an important step to ensure the regular supply of quality-assured essential medical supplies to rural health facilities and hospitals across the country.
“Essential medical supplies are critical to saving women’s lives in childbirth and treating pneumonia in young children at the earliest time possible.
“In the past, this has been a major problem – essential drugs in health facilities were out of stock for more than half of the year in 2010.
“The independence of the health procurement authority is essential to reduce opportunities for corruption and interference.
“Addressing corruption is a priority for the PNG government and Australia congratulates the
health minister and secretary for their efforts in addressing this issue.”
Yesterday, Baxter and Minister for Planning and Monitoring Sam Basil reaffirmed the countries’ commitment to eradicating fraud and corruption in the Australian aid programme and more broadly in PNG by signing a joint statement on fraud and corruption.
“The establishment of a similar health procurement authority in Tamil Nadu, India, has demonstrated excellent success in this area. Procurement costs have been cut by 30%, quality testing of drugs is robust, and local health authorities report there are no examples of drug stock-outs.”
At the request of the PNG government in 2010, Australia is actively supporting the reform of PNG’s medical supply system.
“Last year, Australia distributed 16,060 boxes of medical supplies to 706 health centres and 2,101 aid posts – more than 95% of all health facilities in PNG.
“Australia had procured more than A$24 million worth of essential medical supplies for delivery to all health facilities in PNG this year and next year.”
This support was part of Australia’s performance-linked aid commitments to reward the go­vernment of PNG in cancelling compromised tenders for medical supply kits in 2010.
“Australia looks forward to further negotiating the details of the independent health procurement authority with PNG, including the conditions for future Australian aid to support medical supply reform,” Baxter said.