Church health workers leaving, says parishioner

By JAMES APA GUMUNO
PEOPLE in Chimbu’s Kero­wagi district are concerned with the church-run health service losing its workforce.
Many health workers there have left their jobs for greener pastures.
Dre Cecilia Kimagl, a member of the Mingende Catholic parish council, yesterday said seven health workers with the Mingende Rural Hospital left recently.
She said the church had many health centres, sub-health centres and aid posts in rural areas in the province in areas where the government had failed to provide such vital services.
She said the health workers left because of low pay compared to what their colleagues in government or the private sector received.
She said it was nothing to do with the management of the church health services in the province.
Kimagl said if health workers continued to leave for jobs elsewhere, church-run health services in the province would be badly affected by the shortage of manpower.
She said the lives of thousands of people in the province would be affected.
She called on the government to revisit the pay structure and put all health workers on a uniform pay structure.
Kimagl said the government should be partly blamed for church health workers leaving their jobs.
Church Medical Council of Papua New Guinea chairman White Wallace said recently during a gathering in Tinsely in Baiyer district, Western Highlands, that church-run hospitals were classified by the Health Department as health centres and led to underfunding.
Wallace said a recently graduated nurse working in a church-run health service was paid at a level six position while colleagues working in government-run hospitals were paid at level seven.
He said there was no fairness in salaries even though they did the same job and had the same qualification.
He said because of the low pay, many health workers in church-run health services throughout the country left their jobs for the go­vernment or private sector.