Madang health meet told PNG lacks specialist doctors

THERE is a shortage of specialist doctors in the country because many are taking up administrative jobs, a conference was told.
Manus General Hospital chief executive officer Boe Avue said he found it hard to understand
why specialist doctors wanted desk jobs as administrators when they should be walking around hospital corridors attending to patients.
“Why are specialist doctors appointed as CEO’s and deputy secretaries?”
Some example he gave were current CEO of Kimbe General Hospital Dr Victor Golpak, the country’s only orthoepaedic specialist Dr Paison Dakulala and Goa Tau, the PNG’s two physicians with Golpak currently the deputy secretary, technical health service (Dakulala) and executive manager medical standards.
Avue said: “Why are we talking about deteriorating services when such specialist are not fully utilised?
“There is a very huge human resource gap, who will train those that we want trained?”
He was speaking in Madang last week where health officials gathered to discuss the Somare government’s K14.17 billion National Health Plan, which would be rolled out next year.
It was revealed during the workshop that the millenium development goals (MDGs) of child mortality, maternal health, TB, malaria, pneumonia and HIV /AIDS reduction were still some of the major challenges faced by the Health Department.