PMC committee claims are baseless

THE PMC committee’s advertorial in the dailies is pompous, glaringly superficial and lacks total substance.
Its main purpose was to ply on the gullibility of the public on this health hub.
All statements are indeed baseless to delude the public.
Certain conclusions and misconstrued statements must be put right.
The title: “Transforming health services at all levels in PNG by PMC” is in fact a burgoos and contradictory clause because PMC will drain funds from the public health development funds to support its establishment and operations.
The health minister has already set aside K200 million from health capacity building fund to support PMC’s establishment, therefore PMC is destined to destruct and not transform the health services at all levels in PNG as claimed by PMC proponents.
A quote from former US president Bill Clinton raises two points.
Firstly, the dressing of PMC committee’s arguments with Clinton’s view distinctively exhibits the gullibility of the committee to religiously accept unfounded perceptions as long as they are from a famous name.
The committee did not mention Clinton Foundation’s financial contribution as start-up capital and for the operational costs of PMC nor its other so-called collaborators.
The former president does not have any clue about the health issues in PNG and his quote raises the possibility of bias.
The committee is fictitiously stating that the project is not for profit.
How will our government, the only financial contributor as it seems in its arguments, continue to support a high class expensive hospital when it cannot sustain the public health system with K180 million?
Why is the committee so adamant that the government commits money to run a parallel heath system when the current system is in dire straits?
Dr Mathias Sapuri is a private practitioner and it is illogical he calls the shots for a public enterprise-funded from the state’s coffers.
What are his interests in this project?
PNG has medical teaching and research institutions that are in dire need of capital investments to improve their capacities and networking to carry out researches and teaching, a fact that PMC committee cannot deny.
Its assertion that PMC will be become the centre of training is also misleading and fictitious.
Prof Glen Mola has been denigrated in the advertorial but we know that he has been consistently providing evidences for his arguments all along regarding the PMC issue.
He was the first Papua New Guinean to start a private hospital now popularly known as Mol’s Clinic in Port Moresby and has sold the majority of his shares.
He has relentlessly worked for 38 years in the public system to better the health care of our mothers and the facts are unquestionable.
To say that his arguments are parochial to protect his business interest is baseless.
Mola is not alone in this stance.
The medical fraternity has unanimously rejected the PMC concept.
The O&G Society, the Paediatrics Society, the Surgical Society, the Physicians’ Society and other societies have individually rejected the PMC concept in the last medical symposium in Wewak.
In that meeting, Sapuri was removed as chairman of the PNG Medical Society.
As such, it is frivolous of the PMC committee to incessantly incorporate the society members in its arguments.
The Health Department staff are indeed in a difficult position to express their opinions.
Most or all of them are indeed against PMC because they do not see any evidence that PMC will improve the health status as claimed by its proponents and its collaborators.
The government cannot feed two dogs at the same time; the stronger one will overcome the weaker one.
We, in the medical fraternity, know the evidences available but the PMC committee has allowed for political expediency over these fundamental facts at the expense of the majority’s health.
The prime minister has finally made one right call and we applaud him and hope that his decision will stand.

Leslie Bahn Kawa
Physician, PMGH