HELP THY NEIGHBOUR
AFTER SPENDING TWO WEEKS ABOARD THE MEDICAL SHIP
VICTORIA NUGENT
REPORTS ON THE HEALTH ISSUES OUR NEAREST NEIGHBOUR FACES.
THEY’RE our nearest neighbour but their health issues are beyond the imagination of many Australians.
Youth With A Mission’s Townsville- based medical ship, the MV YWAM PNG has been travelling around the Central Province of Papua New Guinea over the past two weeks, delivering health services to remote villages.
The country’s many and varied health issues include diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, eyesight issues and fungal skin disorders, often caused by poor hygiene.
Chewing betel nut, a common habit in PNG, has had a devastating effect on the country’s dental health.
PNG national Nigel Sionabae is a YWAM volunteer and said the health care provided in his country was not what it should be.
“Sometimes I’m embarrassed because these are really basic services we haven’t got,” he said.
“These services are supposed to be provided by the government but they’re not.
“It’s overwhelming. I think about where I come from, my family, and these people look just like them.”
Mr Sionabae said back and knee problems were another common problem, due to the hard lifestyles many people lead, particularly in mountainous regions.
“Skinny men can kill a big pig and carry the pig down on their backs,” he said. “They do it to make a name for themself.
“When they’re 10 or 15 years older it begins to hit them very hard.”
Professor Maxine Whittaker from James Cook University is heavily involved in efforts to eliminate malaria in the Asia Pacific region, particularly in PNG.
Professor Whittaker said the goal was to eliminate malaria by 2030, gradually reducing the spread of the disease.
“Shrinking the map is the term we use,” she said. “PNG will be one of the last places because of the issues in reaching some areas. Some provinces are quite low in the prevalence of malaria now.”
Professor Whittaker said to eliminate malaria in PNG, they would also need to target neighbouring nations, including Indonesia.
“The Solomon Islands are on track to reduce malaria earlier,” she said.
Central Province district family health co- ordinator and public health supervisor Sister Rigolo Mokela said complications during birth were a big problem in remote villages.
“The mothers, after delivery, they are dying,” she said.
“Post- partum haemorrhage is one of the main causes here because it’s too far out. By the time the rescue comes it’s very late and the mother dies on the way.”
Sister Mokela said she often worked in remote areas where the community health worker was calling for assistance during a difficult birth, helping transport women to hospital.
“I carry this food foil and the baby is kept to the mother’s chest with the foil,” she said.
“Most mothers do not have this, they do not prepare for their deliveries so we have to look for clothes, their skirts or their bedsheets or whatever we can do to keep the baby warm against the mother.
“It’s even worse when there are rough seas, very difficult so mother has to be covered with the canvas, with the baby inside but then if the mother has a retained placenta or something the baby is carried by the other guardians, away from the mother.
“The mother is uncomfortable on the dinghy ... she’s uncomfortable and she’s bleeding and IV drip management is not available so sometimes we have to come all the way to meet them, otherwise most of the time it’s unsuccessful.”
On every YWAM outreach, volunteers from across health professions treat people who would normally find it hard to access medical care, averaging 300 to 400 patients a day.
There are no miracle cures, but there are treatments customised to the lifestyle of the patients.
YWAM clinic manager Hannah Peart said as well a tropical diseases, they often saw illnesses that while familiar in Australia, came with extra complications in PNG.
“If you have a ( foot) wound, we say keep it clean but if your community lives on the sand and have not got shoes, how’s that work?” she said. Ms Peart said it was important to spend time training local health workers.