PNG doctors alarmed at rise in cholera cases
Updated
Health authorities in Papua New Guinea are concerned about an alarming increase in the number of cholera cases in Morobe Province over the past six weeks. The Cholera National Coordinator for PNG, Dr Victor Golpak says a delay by the government to release funding earmarked to fight the disease hasn't helped the situation.
Presenter: Paulus Kombo
Speaker: Papua New Guinea's National Cholera Coordinator, Dr Victor Golpak
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GOLPAK: I've been looking around and looking at the statistics. There has been quite a sharp increase and I think we attribute that to people's lack of attention to our awareness campaign, that is one and then secondly, I think the rainy decision has made it a little bit worse. This is because people are still using the bush as toilets and rainy season is washing their waste into their water resource and that is one of the issues that we have to drum across to the community.
KOMBO: From the beginning, cholera was mainly concentrated around the city area and the settlement area around Lae city itself. But it seems like it has moved into the villages?
GOLPAK: Yes, you are right, but it has not left the city settlement. It is still there in the city settlement. The problem is people moving from city settlements to the villages or villages going into the city and living in the settlement and then taking it back to the villages, so that is the problem now. So one of the biggest affected areas now is the Makam district of Morobe with health centre at both things seeing about 74 cases in total over the last few weeks with two deaths.
KOMBO: What about the money that the government has promised not to fight the disease?
GOLPAK: Oh yes, the government actually approved eleven million for this fight. This was approved in September.
Now as of now, we have only received three million from the allocated eleven million and that three million we are trying our best.
When we asked for the eleven million, only one province was involved and part of that eleven million was supposed to be used for prevention and awareness in other provinces. But now there are three provinces involved with so many districts within each of the provinces now involved. So the amount of money we actually require now exceeds the amount we originally asked for, but so far we have only received one third of what we asked for. So that is the whole issue. We don't have the funds to fight confidently.
KOMBO: The Health Department in three provinces I think in the Madang Province of Morobe and East Central Province have requested for the fund well before the Christmas and came Christmas they shut the whole office. The money has not been released until recently and you are receiving just a portion of it?
GOLPAK: We received three million just before Christmas, could not get it dispersed until this week, in fact last week. The money was deposited into three accounts and the thing in they were only depositing about 300 thousand and into each of the provinces and that 300 thousand would finish in three days, because they have accumulated a lot of debt in the last few weeks and that is a big problem, because now all our service providers they have been waiting for the money and now that it's come, okay, we will give it to them, but will they continue to assist us. We need fuel and we don't get and you don't get fuel free. We need transport to move around and bring patients and bring awareness campaigns and things like that to the community. So all those things require quite a lot of money.
