YWAM Medical Ship visits East Sepik Province.

Youth With A Mision (YWAM) Medical Ship, MV Pacific Link, visited East Sepik Province after six months in Madang Province. The crew comprises of doctors, students and the captain and his cabin crew. They were received into by East Sepik Governor, Honorable Sir Michael Somare, Lady Veronica Somare and the people of East Sepik Province on the 13^th of September 2016.

East Sepik Governor Rt.Hon.Sir Michael Somare and Lady Veronica Somare guided on tour of the ship

 

Their arrival was timely as the province is preparing to celebrate 41^st Independent Anniversary and is noted as a blessing for the province and signifies a memorable time in the history of Papua New Guinea when early missionaries came unto the shores on PNG not only to spread the gospel but to teach and heal people.

YWAM is a Non – Government Christian Organization which was started in Colorado and has extended its services to Papua New Guinea with personnel working in Southern and Northern Regions of Papua New Guinea.

Staff of YWAM Medical Ship, MV Pacific Link

 

They will be in East Sepik for another six months providing health care services free of charge to the people before heading to Sandaun/West Sepik Province.

During their stay they will work alongside Boram General Hospital and the nurses from remote health facilities as they go about visiting Wewak Islands and the Sepik River. Previous six months in Madang Province they saw a total of 48 000 health cases which is equivalent to a cost of K4.86 million and they expect a much higher demand for health care services by the people of ESP

They get their support from businesses, individuals, hospitals and from interest Provincial Governments and so far supports have been great.

So far existing reputable Christian NGOs working alongside East Sepik Provincial Administration to provide health care services and other relevant matters of development are Samaritan Aviation, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), New Tribes, Christian Books Melanesia (CBM) and Churches Health Services.   

Welcome dances by the people of East Sepik Province, Top and bottom

 

Kunjingini Health Sub Center receives new Ambulance

Kunjingini Health Sub Center in South Wosera Local Level Government was fortunate to be given another ambulance to continue providing essential health care services. Kunjingini HSC is one of the 21 health facilities managed by Catholic Church Health Services, East Sepik Province.

New Ambulance

 

Upon receiving the ambulance on the 26^th July 2016, Nursing Officer in Charge of Kunjingini HSC, Leona Wamasimbi thanked the Diocesan Health Secretary, Sr. Celine Yakasere and said the ambulance will greatly assist in doing Outreach Clinics, Maternal and Child Health Programs and do referrals of severe cases. We have been receiving an influx of patients as far as Torembi, Chambri, Korogu, Burui, North Wosera and Maprik as well. These people come from beyond our catchment area because we continue to open doors and provide the quality of health care they need. They timely delivery of the new ambulance will really boost our work.

The current ambulance they are using is 12 years old. It was donated by Save the Children Health Project in 2004.

Old Ambulance

 

Sr. Celine Yakasere thanked the people of South Wosera for looking after the services and said that the new ambulance will strictly be used for its intended purposes and there should be no smoking or chewing in the ambulance at all times. She said she is aware of the increasing demand of quality health care but she cannot attend to all at once, all I can do is do my best.

Village Health Volunteers; Bridging the gaps in Health Service disparities

VHV Program was introduced by Safe The Children Health Project in and is implemented using the network of Churches Health Services and Government Health Services in East Sepik Province.

The purpose of introducing this program is to bridge the gap between health facility and the people who are scattered all over the remote parts of ESP. The idea is to ensure local men or women are readily available in the village to attend to basic health care needs of the people. Local men and women are trained before they practice.

Voluntary efforts committed by these men and women have significantly contributed towards achieving universal access to health care by all people.  The turnout of this program considerably helped in many ways. Few notable achievements would be, people do not have to travel long distances to reach the nearest health facility for medical treatment, number of people queuing up at the Out Patient at selected health facility has decreased and workload for staff has reduced greatly.

Furthermore, these VHVs are also trained as Community Based Distributors of Mala 1 (CBDs) under Home Based Management of Malaria (HMM) Program. This greatly extend the campaign of new malaria treatment regime to all people and is easily accessed by all people in the villages.

CCHS has a two Field Monitors who oversee the work of VHVs, CBDs and HMM. At selected health facilities, there are nursing officers who are trained as Supervisors who do routing checks on the program, collect reports, supply medicines and report back to the Field Monitors about the progress of the program.   

Under CCHS ESP along, a total of 13 health facilities implement the program, with more than 800 villages accessing help from VHVs right across six districts of ESP. Altogether there are 742 VHV. 53 have become inactive while 5 died.

The challenge is they are working as volunteers and campaigns have been made for the people, Local Level Government and private individuals to support their work.  

Catholic Church Health Services VHV Field Monitor

A VHV Supervisor with a VHV during supervisory visits

VHVs celebrating VHV Day at Kunjingini Health Sub Center, South Wosera LLG

Samaritan Aviation: 390 lives saved, delivering 100 000 medical supplies, more than 300 hours of flight in 117 emergency flights

Samaritan Aviation operates the only floatplane in Papua New Guinea, serving those living in East Sepik Province through emergency evacuation flights, medicine delivery, disaster relief and community health program.

Mark Palm, Samaritan Aviation Director and pilot visited the area when he was 19 and saw the medical and spiritual of the people. He realized that a floatplane would provide access to those areas.

He returned to United States and to school, eventually earned a commercial pilot certificate with instrument and floatplane rating as well as aircraft mechanic certificate.

In 2000, Samaritan Aviation started as a non-profit Aviation Hospital Ministry and began raising awareness for its mission. Ten years later, he achieved his dream and in 2010 Mark Palm, his wife and three children came to Wewak to begin their flight operations with only one floatplane.

To date, Samaritan Aviation has delivered more than 100, 000 medical supplies and saved 390 lives, 60% of which are babies and mothers by flying more than 300 hours in 117 emergency flights.

A second floatplane has arrived in Wewak from United States and they are assembling it for its maiden flight in a later date. “This will ensure that a plane is always available if the other plane encounter mechanic problem,” said Mark Palm.

Currently 50% of their funding comes from PNG Government the other 50% from private individuals and foundations in USA.

Their team is s

New Pilot Family

Emergency flights along Sepik River Villages

lowly growing in size. In 2014, a new pilot family joined Samaritan Aviation, John and Carrie Smith and their family. John is a pilot as well as an aircraft mechanic. Both will be involved in Samaritan Aviation Hospital Ministry and Community Health Evangelism (CHE) Program. Another family, Forrest and Marlene Williamsons with their two children will depart US for Wewak next September to join the team. Forrest is a pilot as well while his wife is a nurse.

Emergency flight delivering a patient at Boram Airport, Wewak

Opening of Dagua Health Center Multi Purpose Training Center

Check this out...A typical Sepik Celebration in style.
Dagua, East Sepik Province, Wewak

Health Promotion and Healthy Island Concept: Way forward for Health Care

While Papua New Guinea is suffering and trying to cure Communicable Diseases (CD), it is now bombarded with the burden of addressing emerging Non Communicable Diseases (NCD). CDs are diseases that can pass on from an infected person to another while NCDs also known as Lifestyle Diseases are those that come about as a result of peoples' unhealthy lifestyle/behavior. Eg, of CDs include but not limited to diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis etc and examples of NCDs include unhealthy conditions like obesity, mental stress disorder, high blood pressure etc.

Our approach to fight against such double burden disease pattern is more focused on treating/curing and not prevention when we should be balancing both the treatment and prevention methods for the battle against diseases and unhealthy condition. There should be some sort of tracking and monitoring system in place at the point of health care to keep a record of diseases and the people suffering from these abnormalities. The latter part will be discussed later.

A way forward would be back to basic approach where health promotion is very much part of the treatment for infirmities. That was the practice before independence and it has resulted in having had good health indicators (National Health Plan 2011-2020). Then we have the Healthy Island Concept which is in fact a sub topic under the Program called Health Setting being introduced into Asia Pacific in 1995.

Let us define Health Promotion and Healthy Island. 

Healthy Setting is an intervention and a generic name for sub topics like Healthy Island, Healthy Marketplace, Healthy Villages, Healthy Towns, Healthy Workplace etc. Healthy Settings are physical and social settings which serve as supportive environments for health protection and health promotion activities. Health Promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a focus on individual behavior towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions.

In short, Health Promotion and Healthy Setting is about empowering people to take matters of health unto their own hands and advocate for healthy life styles personally, in their families and the environment their live and work.

This is a sector wide holistic approach, taking into account other sectors of public services and not limited to the field of health only and view human beings as a complete being physically, mentally, socially and spiritually.

So what would be the future scenario of health care service be like if healthy setting, health promotion and treatment are practiced together at the front line of health service delivery?

Here are some advantages of what the future scenario of health care services be like when people are educated and empowered to take ownership of their own health and the environment their live in,

• ·         People will know how to avoid contracting diseases
• ·         People can identify diseases
• ·         People know the remedies of diseases
• ·         People will know the economical, educational and social consequences of being sick
• ·         Possible eradication of diseases
• ·         Prevention of diseases outbreaks
• ·         Tourist attraction when environment is beautiful and friendly
• ·         Pathway for community development initiatives, example, water and sanitation projects
• ·         Minimizing cost of health care

Health facilities at the front line of care can develop measurable indicators and keep track of disease to see whether these interventions have impact on the outpatient visits and disease patterns. This forms the monitoring and evaluation part of the interventions

Nurses administering health care can develop indicators such as

• ·         Number of people visiting health facility for treatment
• ·         Which disease is the common reason for health facility visit
• ·         The incident rate of diseases
• ·         The prevalence rate of diseases
• ·         Which group of people and from which part of the community frequently come for treatment

Measurements can be done in a quarterly manner at the service level to guide our performance and progress on the matter (interventions). One indirect benefit of such approach is less patients seen if the two interventions proved to be successful. Less patients mean less workload for staff and vital scarce resources can be mobilized in areas of priorities like maternal and child health programs.

All we are dreaming of is a day in the future where people are completely from diseases and infirmities.

I was inspired to share this with you all because it works for people who have the passion to take ownership of their own health and the rewards of being a healthy community is great. Following is the photo essay of South Seas Evangelical Church Health Services in Drekikir District of East Sepik Province, a pilot site and a modern model of healthy village setting.

Healthy Village setting

Healthy Community

Community Development Initiative, Water Supply and Sanitation funded by EU and WaterAid

Community Projects funded by UNDP

Disease pattern after the intervention

Real cost Health Care in rural PNG

The true cost of health service delivery in rural PNG does not necessarily measured in monetary terms along. Very detailed, comprehensive public expenditure framework policies have been passed, detailing very well the amount to be spent on health per capita but if they are not achievable than its a waste of resources pumped into developing such policies. If you talk to a rural villager but all these stuff he/she will never understand you well. All they want is the tangible result of the policies.

So what does it take to reach the marginalised, rural population of PNG? It costs the hard working health personnel at the forefront of health service delivery the commitment, the passion, the determination and the conviction to travel beyond their comfort zones, to struggle through rugged, harsh, unwelcoming terrain of PNG to reach these people and administer the basic yet vital health care services. Often all of their struggles and hard work go unnoticed and unrecorded.

Currently on the ground, the surviving health facilities and staff reaching and serving the peripherals of PNG are the health services operated by Christian Health Services, PNG, an overarching governing body of all Church Health Agencies in PNG but reports to National Department of Health. Most of these health facilities are dated back before the Second World War and they were built by early missionaries. They have contributed a lot to the history and development of modern Papua New Guinea.

Health service delivery in PNG after Independence was in a total state of chaos leading to poor health indicators. This trend follows the introduction of Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government as the government's attempt to introduce the concept of Decentralisation. The health service then after independence is a complicated, mixture of delegated and transferred roles and responsibilities between the three levels of government. As a desperate attempt to rectify this situation, the government introduces National Health Administration Act, then Public Hospital Act and the recent one which is National Health Administration Act to unify health service delivery as One System.

Though it affects everyone providing health services, the most affected ones are the government health services. Most of their health facilities have closed, workers roaming around being paid for doing nothing and the list goes on.

So what would be the best, effective and innovative way of doing business in health this 21st century? We are and will always be accountable for not providing the necessary but vital health services to the people placed under our care.

MCH Patrols, May River, Ambunti, SDA Health Services

Young Nursing Officer with escort, MCH. May River, Ambunti, SDA Health Services

Ambulance manoeuvring through wetlands during MCH, Kunjingini, Wosera/Gawi, CCHS 

Manoeuvring through bogged waterways, Nursing Officer on MCH Patrols, Ambunti, CCHS, Wewak

Referring an Antenatal mother from Kambot, Angoram District to Wewak. Catholic Church Health Services (CCHS), Wewak