Healthcare firm probed

HEALTH Minister Michael Malabag has directed the PNG Medical Board not to issue any more new or renew existing medical practitioning licences to private healthcare provider International SOS.
This follows revelations by the ABC Four Corners programme Bad Blood on April 25 about the case of a Manus Island detainee, Hamid Khazeai, who died following a bacterial infection in 2014.
The television programme quoted some of Australia’s most senior doctors and medical staff with experience in the offshore detention system.
ISOS has been contracted by the Australian Government to provide healthcare services to detainees, which has already cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.
However, the doctors say the medicalcare provided in Manus Island is “dangerously inadequate”, the ABC programme reported.
PNG Medical Board chairman Dr Osbourne Liko said in a letter, dated May 24, to ISOS country general manager Mark Delmonte that Malabag had also ordered an investigation into the Manus incident.
“We advise that we have been directed by the Ministry of Health to undertake an investigation into the above (ABC Four Corners Programme Bad Blood with respect to Manus asylum centre investigation),” Liko said in his letter, a copy of which has been obtained by The National.
“A detailed terms of reference has been provided to us. To assist us conduct the investigation, we ask you to furnish us the following:

• a detailed brief on the incident;
• names of ISOS health professions, foreign and local, who were present in Manus at the time of the incident;
• advise us what action, if any, taken by Health and Immigration officials in Canberra. Will there be an inquiry? Should the Medical Board of PNG be represented?
• provide any other relevant information you deem necessary.