| Original Message |
SuperMech99
Posted Dec 12, 2010 2:14 PM
tjja tjja, I doubt you are actually thinking straight, your justification for tourists and other islanders to benefit from this service is shallow! Tourists and other pacific islander are secondary, the people of Papua New Guinea should be top priority!
If Statistics were kept, I can almost guarantee that only a small percentage (0.1-0.5%) of our populations are living or dying from diseases that cannot be treated here. I cannot place a monetary value on human life (or the emotional drain families go through) and do see that even one person should be given the best treatment at home but if our existing health system were that good and we had all the money then PMC would be a viable project. We must look at the majority and address their needs first, those are decisions and sacrifices real leaders make in the best interest of the majority! But all hope is not lost, we can still seek overseas medical treatment for others.
Today as we type away on this forum, Papua New Guineans are dying from lack of basic medication (for curable diseases),lack of health workers and professionals or are being even diagnosed incorrectly and given wrong medication leading to complications and tragedy.
This is the problem, this is the main concern. This is what isalso driving POM to be overcrowded with people in search of better health and education, opportunities in life. They think it is all in POM!
What we need to realize is we have time bomb in our population growth rate, our population is growing at such an alarming rate everything else is lagging and cannot keep up. Coupled with indecisive and greedy leaders and beauracrats, we have a recipe for disaster.
Because we dont know our population growth rate and how to address this, problems with lack of hospitals, schools, roads and other basic services are the consequence.
We dont know how many doctors we need, nurses, teachers, police personnel and every other government workers. We will have food security issues in the not to distant future.
So people drift to the urban areas so we have people crowding around major towns and cities. What is the consequence of this Urban Drift? It has a chain reaction as some of us see:
1) Overcrowded schools and hospitals resulting in lack of proper development and learning
2) Overcrowded roads with cars that are unroadworth resulting in high accident rates that is already stressing the Emergency ward
3) Imbalance in the distribution of wealth resulting in escalating law and order problems and corruption
4) Continous 'Power Load Shedding and water restriction' by PNG Power and Eda Ranu, the power and water supply is at its limit. There is a high demand for power and water but the source can't keep up. In part, PNG Power and Eda Ranu are responsible for lack of planning and increasing their capacity but influx of people, industrialisation and demand for these resources is the main reason.
5) Demand on fuel and food etc results in increase of prices
WE need to plan for the populations, educate and bring more doctors, nurses and medical professional on stream so they can service these people, provide incentives (good housing, transport, good renumeration etc) so they will be motivated to go to the outskirts and motivated to stay onshore rather than take up good offers overseas. Stock up these hospitals and health centers with medecine. All of these require fundings and fundings in millions each year!!
Only when majority of the curable diseases that are wiping out our people are up to the point where there are manageable then should we start talking about PMC etc.
For cases like PMC, there is a capital cost to build the hospital and buy the expensive equipment/instruments to install and then you have the operating cost to keep the hospital going (electricity, water, salaries, maintenance etc). If you have enough people going there then it will be economical and the hospital makes money and pays for itself and its operation(return on investment) however, if there is a lack of patients then someone has to pay to keep it going which means future health fund will be diverted there.
|
|
|