Mekere donates new bus to Tokarara health clinic

TOKARARA Clinic yesterday received a 15-seater bus to assist them in their clinical work around the Tokarara-June Valley suburb.
Run by the Seventh-Day Adventist church, the clinic was reopened under the Government’s public-private partnership scheme, in which all the manpower and management work is looked after by the church while all operational costs are subsidised by the Government.
Sister in charge Henao Mailau said the bus would be used to carry out mobile immunisation clinic work, pick up and drop off for staff, emergency runs to Port Moresby General Hospital and runs to the drug dispensary at Badili.
Sr Mailau said this was part of the new clinical system whereby clinics were responsible for the residents within their suburbs.
The Toyota Hiace bus, worth over K71,000, with all operational costs to be maintained by Ela Motors, is a donation from the Member for North-west Sir Mekere Morauta from his district services improvement programme (DSIP) funds.
Sir Mekere said though it took one year to bring the bus to the clinic, he was happy to note that in the one year it was open, there had not been any reported cases of the community trying to ruin their good fortune.
He said this was a classic example of why the churches and the Government should work together to care for the people.
Sir Mekere pointed out that it was the churches that did most of the Government’s work and the partnership needed to be nurtured and assisted in every way.
He then pledged from his own funds K10,000 for the clinic’s use, saying that the last thing he wanted was for a church to take any commitment in good faith and fail due to lack of support.
The church’s chief financial officer Max Lassah said despite the problems that they faced, the church had committed to taking care of the clinic and its staff and would continue to do so despite circumstances.