Papua New Guinea’s public health is at an “all-time low” and requires immediate and serious attention, according to a senior health administrator.
Health Department deputy secretary Dr Ken Wai, presenting the national public health status to the 24th National Health Conference, said: “All the public health indicators are an all-time low, and without public health prevention actions and interventions, our health system will be overwhelmed and no amount of money would be adequate to manage a sick population.”
Dr Wai said the country’s malaria incidence was a million cases a year, tuberculosis (TB) incident rate of 424 per 100,000, or 40,000 new cases per year, and the single major cause of admissions and deaths across hospitals and health facilities in the country.
The HIV prevalence rate has increased from 0.9 to 1.6 percent and the number of cases have gone past 70,000 with the infection rate of 6,500 peryear in the country.
The immunisation coverage is trailing at less than 40 percent for measles and pentavalent (a combination of five vaccines that protects against five diseases).
In comparison with our neighbours, Fiji is on 94 percent and Solomon Islands is on 60 percent.
Supervised deliveries remain at 30-40 percent over the last 20 years while, there is an increased incidence of cancers and malignancies, the other non-communicable and lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases, high incidences of pneumonia and diarrheal diseases.
Dr Wai said that, in public health, given all these unfavourable statistics, along with a workforce crisis and medical supplies issue, “the challenge is on us, the health workers, especially those in public health to go to the families, homes, villages, towns, markets, and prevent the diseases and conditions from happening.”
To counter the current ‘all time low’ health indicators, he said: “It is achievable, we already have an excellent health system in place, public health wing, the Provincial Health Authority (PHA) system is established and we can work together with our clinical colleagues for public health programmes. “The call for action is to build strong partnerships, proper coordination of our health programmes such as regular in-service trainings with continued care, make funding provisions for primary health care in mobile clinics and foot-patrols, while meeting health goals,” he added.