Disturbing to see patients die: Journo

A TELEVISION journalist told the PAC that it was very disturbing, especially for young reporters, to watch patients die from curable diseases in their news gathering assignments.
“There are health centres and aid posts in many rural areas that have shut down and closed, and people walk for miles to seek health care,” EMTV deputy regional head of news Scott Waide said.
“In one of our interviews, while filming, a reporter watched three people die, one from lack of medicine and drugs and two others who came from an area where their aid posts had shut down, so they had to walk miles to reach the next nearest facility.
“But I guess they were far too hone and died on arrival,” he said.
Waide said that too often, it was said, medicines were not arriving on time due to orders not being placed on time.
“However, in our reporting, we found that orders were made on time but supplies never got to their destination on time,” he said.
Waide said that though he did not have in-depth knowledge of the NDoHs procurement and supply systems, “you just have to go to any rural health centre and aid post to see for yourself the acute shortage of medicines”.
“As, we sit here, I am informed by a reporter in Mt Hagen that the third largest city in Papua New Guinea is currently facing a shortage of Tuberculosis (TB) drug supply.
“And even in urban clinics there are shortages,” he added.
Waide also presented a five-minute film presentation on news reports done by EMTV in Morobe, the country’s largest province, on the shortage of medicine.
The video showed nurses crying for their patients because they were too heartbroken to turn them away because there were no medicines to treat their illness.
Waide told the PAC that EMTV had reported on the issue for more than five years, speaking with health workers and patients in both the rural and urban areas.