Disband unnecessary red tape

“BUILDING a fairer, healthier world” was the theme for the World Health Day, which slipped by quietly last Wednesday (April 7).
For Papua New Guinea, the day was obviously shadowed by the current struggles of managing the coronavirus surge against the struggling health facilities.
The quote by Roman poet Virgil – “The greatest wealth is health” – tells us health is central to human happiness and well-being.
Health also makes an important contribution to economic progress, as healthy populations live longer and are more productive.
Investment in health is not only a desirable, but also, an essential priority for most societies.
However, our health systems face tough and complex challenges, in part derived from new pressures, such as ageing populations, growing prevalence of chronic illnesses including the procurement and distribution of medical supplies.
Right now, we lack the capacity and ability to support our medical doctors and nurses with the best and latest medical equipment that are covered with back-to- back technical support and warranty from the equipment suppliers during the coronavirus surge.
As the Covid-19 has highlighted, some people are able to live healthier lives and have better access to health services than others – entirely due to the conditions in which they are born, grow, live, work and age.
All over the world, some groups struggle to make ends meet with little daily income, have poorer housing conditions and education, fewer employment opportunities, experience greater gender inequality, and have little or no access to safe environments, clean water and air, food security and health services.
This leads to unnecessary suffering, avoidable illness and premature death.
And it harms our societies and economies.
This is not only unfair: it is preventable.
We concur with the World Health Organisation and call on our leaders to ensure that everyone has living and working conditions that are conducive to good health.
At the same time, we urge leaders to monitor health inequities, and to ensure that all people are able to access quality health services when and where they need them.
The Covid-19 has hit all countries hard, but its impact has been harshest on communities which were already vulnerable, who are more exposed to the disease, less likely to have access to quality healthcare services and more likely to experience adverse consequences as a result of measures implemented to contain the pandemic.
Prevention will always be better than cure, as the saying goes.
Time after time, we see and hear of our citizens falling to preventable illness or medical procedures and process that continue to take lives.
Fingers most times point to the hospitals’ ill-equipped state.
Time and time, we argue and debate that we have all the money in the world to make available world class hospitals, yet, why can’t we have the best hospital care system?
When we try to upgrade our facilities, we are faced with roadblocks such as uncompleted projects, budget overruns and the lot that derails the project completion.
All those are part and partial elements of delivering what is really lacking in our hospitals in the country, which are inundated with maladministration and mismanagement by the respective hospital boards, lack of motivation, care, pride and under resource of health workers and most of all, a quality health care system.
The Government should consider disbanding all these unnecessary red tape of management.