Staff without pay for 2 months

National

By DALE LUMA
HEALTH workers in a health centre in Komo, Hela, have not been paid their fortnightly salaries for nearly two months, a nursing officer says.
Officer in-charge of Mananda sub-health centre in Komo, Hela, Sr Betty Maga said the staff have not been paid for five fortnights.
She said the centre received only K3,000 annually to operate instead of K60,000.
Sr Maga said staff had been able to get by with food rations from ExxonMobil PNG and other means.
She said the health centre had only four staff who served a population of about 16,000.
“Even though it’s a church mission-run sub-centre, their salaries come from the Government,” she said.
She said other challenges the health centre faced were related to medicine supplies which were sometimes delayed in Western Highlands.
“We do not do deliveries because there is no labour ward; the previous one was destroyed in the 2018 earthquake,” Maga said.
She said more staff were needed but there was no funding.
Maga said support from partners such as ExxonMobil had been great with assistance in medicines, infrastructure, logistics, allowances and other initiatives.