Board members’ term expired, new members needed: Doctor

The National National

By LULU MARK
THE term of office for members of the Medical Board of Papua New Guinea has expired and a new board needs to be installed to address issues, a senior doctor says.
Prof Glen Mola, a senior medical practitioner and the head of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Papua New Guinea’s (UPNG) School of Medicine and Health Sciences, made the remarks when responding to questions by The National regarding concerns raised by some medical doctors with the ineffectiveness of the board which had led to the following issues and its compounding impacts:

  • SELLING of prescription medicines by street vendors and over the counter;
  • ROUGE doctors claiming to be specialists and misleading people; and,
  • FOREIGN doctors opening private facilities everywhere.

“The problem is that the term of office for the medical board members has expired,” Prof Mola said.
“Therefore, they are not legally able to hold a meeting and make any valid decisions that would stand up in a court of law.
“The secretary for Health and Minister for Health need to organise the renewal of the board members’ terms or appoint new ones.”
The members of the medical board, whose term expired, were appointed in July 2019. Attempts made to get a response from the Health Minister Jelta Wong and secretary Dr Osborne Liko on the matter were unsuccessful.