Cricket, hospital join up to spread health message

 By PETER SEVARA Jr

THE country’s leading referral hospital and cricket have joined forces to spread the message of immunization.

An agreement was signed by the two entities, Cricket Papua New Guinea (CPNG) and the  Port Moresby General Hospital (POMGH) yesterday signalling a partnership that aims at taking the good health message to children.

Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer  Gant Muddle said POMGH alone did not have the capacity to reach out to people and was always looking for support from the community to address major health issues.

“We’re very proud to be working with Cricket PNG to access the country. The measles outbreak was a major concern where we didin’t have the capacity to go out to educate people, especially children on the disease, but with CPNG visiting schools and involving  children in schools, we finally have a partner who can help us fight the outbreak,” Muddle said.

CPNG general manager Greg Campbell said cricket was an honour to be working with POMGH as the code was always looking for new initiatives to better the lives of the community.

“It’s an honour to partner with POMGH. I had a talk with Grant and we discussed a lot of things and came up with the idea of having the PNG Barramundis and Lewas, who recently won the East Asia Pacific Cup, to partner with POM Gen to carry out awareness on immunization for all,” campbell said. 

“This is a voluntary service by CPNG as one of its community initiatives.” Campbell said.

The agreement themed “teaming up to immunise the kids of PNG” will see the Lewas and Barramundis players lead by example by immunizing themselves and their children to protect them from various diseases when travelling from place to place. They will then carry out awareness added by the National Department of Health and while rolling out their Cricket programmes when visiting schools nationwide. They will also carry out awareness on the importance of immunization for everyone with more emphasis on children under five who are more vulnerable.