No funds yet for 3 health centres

THE three rundown health centres in the Bulolo district of Morobe province are sill waiting for a total of K500,000 to start renovation work.
Bulolo MP Sam Basil said he believed the money was still stuck in the Health Department’s trust account in Waigani.
The money was committed to improve the health centers through the public-private partnership programme since 2006.
Mr Basil said the health centres were “totally run down” and staff houses were unfit for human habitation.
District administrator Nimsen Kibisep said the funds were allocated in 2006 to improve health infrastructures of the three health centers.
Under the programme, the district negotiated with Morobe Mining Joint Venture (MMJV) and PNG Forest Products to manage the funds while it would provide the staff, medicine and medical equipment.
The districts’ maintenance work programme funded through DSIP funds and PNG Forest Products, through Bulolo health centre, identified maintenance requirements and a submission was made in 2007.
Currently, Wau health centre has no power and limited water supply.
Inpatients, operating theatre, labour wards, sexually transmitted infectious (STI) sections were all covered with cobwebs and were not functioning. 
Glass panes for tuberculosis ward including fly-screens for other wards were ripped off.
Only maternal child health, the outpatient and TB sections were operating.
No maintenance has been carried out and the wards have been closed since 1990, according to the district health coordinator Kusunau Popau.
 Mr Popau said the three health centres were operating without health committees and health extension officers, leaving community health workers to run the health centre on an ad hoc basis.