Health centre in need of repair: Staff

THE Salamaua health centre in Huon Gulf, Morobe, is in urgent need of repair as the building is falling apart, a health worker says.
Community health worker (CHW) Okole Seka told Huon Gulf MP Ross Seymour on Sunday that the health centre, which served the people of Salamua local level government (LLG), needed urgent maintenance as well as medicine supplies.
“The health centre is old and run down with all posts about to break and collapse, steps about to break off and all doors are without locks,” she said.
“We don’t have lights too and we use mobile phone lights to treat patients at night.
“We also need a boat to transport patients to Lae and for awareness of HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and other diseases in the LLG.”
Seka said World Vision had been assisting them, by hiring boats for their immunisation programmes as they did not have a boat of their own.
“There are no medicines for regular diseases such as TB and malaria,” she said.
“Medicines for everyday diseases are all out.
“We are also down on manpower.
“There are not enough health officers and we, CHWs, are running the health centre without a health extension officer or an officer-in-charge.”
Seymour thanked Seka for letting him know of the challenges the health centre faced and said he would pay for the medicines that were out of stock.
He said the district development authority was planning to build a maternity ward and another hospital at Salamaua.