Lack of funding forces St John to increase fees

By REBECCA KUKU
St John Ambulance has increased its service fees in Port Moresby and will be reducing its services to Central due to lack of funding.
National St John Council chairman Jean Kekedo told The National that the ambulance service had been forced to increase its Port Moresby service fees and reduce its Central operations because it had not received funding from the national Government and the Central provincial administration.
Kekedo said that the decision was reached by the National St John Council because funding from the national Government and the Central administration had been delayed.
“It was a tough decision to make, as more than one million people in NCD and Central rely on the
St John free emergency services,” she said.
“However, due to the delay in receiving our allocated funding, we are left with no choice but to start charging patients.
“We have already reduced our services to Central province in Feb.
“Until this situation with funding is resolved, I have reluctantly directed our chief executive to focus our efforts on corporate fee-paying customers, including members of the ambulance service scheme.
“This has been no easy decision.
“We know about one million people rely on our services.
“The Gerehu and Port Moresby general hospitals need St John to perform thousands of transfers and urgent referrals each year, but our priority now needs to be our sustainability.”
Kekedo thanked Minister for Health and HIV/AIDS Sir Puka Temu for including St John Ambulance in this year’s budget.
The ambulance service was allocated K10 million but the funding had not been released.
“We are committed to working with the health minister, but we need other department secretaries to understand that St John needs to be given appropriate prioritisation when releasing funds as our people’s lives depend on it,” Kekedo said.
“About 20 per cent of the work St John Ambulance does is attending to child-birthing emergencies, where the greatest impact is mostly in Central province.”
Kekedo said that unlike government agencies, the ambulance service could not just stop its services as lives depended on them.