Healthcare queries raised

Letters

Papua New Guinea’s health system is in crisis.
Tuberculosis is at epidemic levels, polio has re-emerged, maternal and child mortality rates are among the worst in the world and malaria infections have increased nine-fold in the recent two to three years.
To make matters worse, there has been no radiology treatment available for cancer patients.
With the high cost of seeking medication overseas, life is difficult for our poor people.
Every day stories are popping-up that our rural health clinics lie empty with shortage of drugs and abandoned.
The list goes on and on.
Yet this is a health system that for decades has been financially and technically supported by some of the world’s largest multilateral agencies – the World Bank, the United Nations, the World Health Organisation, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and many others.
Why is their assistance so manifestly failing?

Bernard Birop Tengyap@ Wais#1 Village, Karinz LLG, Mendi