Medical university ideal: Doc

THE need for more health workers cannot be ignored anymore and the Government’s decision to start the funding for a standalone medical university is a big step forward, a doctor says.
National Health Board of Papua New Guinea deputy-chairman and West New Britain Health Authority chairman Dr Mathias Sapuri said this in response to funding allocation in the Budget 2023 that was tabled in Parliament yesterday.
Under the Capital Budget for the Health Sector, K50 million has been allocated to build a standalone university for the medical field, to be called the PNG Medical University.
This means that doctors, nurses and all cadre of health workers will have their own university for training.
Dr Sapuri said the standalone medical university was an idea that had been pushed for many years.
He stressed during the launch of the 2021-2030 National Health Plan (NHP) last year that an independent medical school would lead to producing more health workers who would be at the forefront implementing the NHP.
“I was the initiator and will support the progress,” he said.
“The number of health workers in PNG is very low.
“The ratio of doctor to patient is 1:15,000, dentist is 1: 64,000 and nurse is 1:5000.
“The University of Papua New Guinea medical school is producing 45 doctors annually.”
He said to meet the demand of the growing population, around 200 doctors should be produced in a year, but PNG was far from it and establishing a standalone university would go a long way in addressing the health workforce challenge.
Dr Sapuri said the investment in training and building the health workforce of the country was important and commend the Government for the action of factoring it in the budget and call for stakeholders to work together in making it happen.

Speaker wants nominations for GG

SPEAKER Job Pomat informed Parliament yesterday that nominations are now open for members to nominate candidates for the position of Governor General.
He said date had been fixed by him for the conduct of an exhaustive secret ballot to decide a person to be nominated by parliament to fill the role.
“The governor general holds office for a term of six years according to section 91 of the Constitution,” he said.
He added that the current GG took office in on Feb 28, 2017 and his term of office expired on Feb 28, 2023. In accordance with the country’s constitution, Pomat said Parliament could elect a nominee at any time in the period of three months before the completion of governor general’s normal term of office.
“Under the organic law, a nomination must be prescribed by forms obtained only from the clerk’s office,” he said.
The Speaker went on to explain processes and procedures that Members of Parliament (MP) were required to follow in this nomination.
“An MP can only propose one person as a candidate for election as a parliament nominee.
He or she could only support one candidate or be a proposer for one candidate,” he said.
He said all completed forms had to be handed to the Clerk of Parliament no later than 12.30pm on Tuesday, Dec 20, 2022.
He said under section 5 of the Organic Law, the clerk could reject a proposal if the requirements were not followed properly.
“If the proposal is not in the prescribed form, the proposal is not signed by at least 15 MPs, he has reasonable cause to believe or does believe that the person nominated is not qualified for appointment as governor general,” he said.
He also informed the house that that a number of decided cases in the Supreme Court had clearly defined the roles and functions of the clerk in conducting the election process of the GG.

Boosting health worker numbers a priority, says minister

By YVONNE KAMBIBEL
THE number one priority of the Health Department is to increase the number of health workers in the country, Health & HIV/AIDS Minister Dr Lino Tom says.
He said this could now be achieved with the substantial funding coming from the Government.
He made these comments after the Budget 2023 was tabled yesterday in Parliament by Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey.
“This is a really good thing that the Government is putting more money into the health sector,” he said.
“We have plans to increase the number of doctors, nurses and other medical workers across the country and the Treasurer has mentioned in his speech that the Government will allocate funding to increase the number of health workers.”
Dr Tom said health was one of the largest and most important sectors in the country and he as Health Minister was grateful for the consideration given to health.
“The Government is also putting money into improving and establishing specialist healthcare facilities.
“I am happy because the country needs more specialist healthcare facilities for cancers, both general and for women, plus the heart facilities that are coming up,” he said.
He said the funding would also go towards the construction of a number of new hospitals that the Government planned to build in the coming years.
With more funding support coming from the Government, the minister said he was happy that they could now push through with their plans to make basic health services accessible for the people.
“I thank the Government for considering and prioritising health as an important sector in the country,” he said.