K42.7bil allocated for health

PRIME Minister James Marape says the Government will continue to prioritise the funding for health as he announced a K42.7 billion health intervention programme for the next 10 to 15 years for Papua New Guinea yesterday.
Marape made the announcement when he officiated at the opening of the 56th Medical Symposium of the PNG Medical Society with the theme ‘information communication science in Covid-19 pandemic, education and research’.
“These interventions must be made correctly, in the correct places, so that small steps are being worked upon for the collective dreams of the country going forward,” he said.
Marape said the Government was committed to ensuring that the national health plan was financed.
Marape said his Government was putting its money where its mouth was with the biggest allocation of K2.8 billion to health in the 2022 budget.
“Our Government is committed to making health our major focus,” he said. “In the last annual appropriation, health sector received the highest ever presented to any sector since 1975.
“Health has always come behind infrastructure and education, but we have turned this around, with health receiving the highest.”
Marape said the Covid-19 had awoken PNG to the ailing state of health facilities, giving an example of having only 200 intensive care unit beds in a country of 10 million people of which only 40 had oxygen and ventilation, 26 of which were in Port Moresby.
He urged all medical practitioners to look into the national health plan 2021-2030 and recommend ways to improve PNG’s health system based on research.
He said the Government was committed to support medical research. Marape talked about the need for PNG patients to be treated in-country.