Mothers and their children waiting to get medical attention. starting Monday
24th of February 2012 all lower Level health facilities will provide medication for free
By
FIDELIS SUKINA
The Governments Free health care policy will be
effective as of Monday 24th of February primary health care will be
free all across the nation while specialist services will be subsidized by 50%.
This was the announcement made by Health Secretary
Pascoe Kase at a press conference on Friday to formally roll out the long
awaited policy.
“The free health care policy is now legal. After
many months of work by the National Department of Health in write up and the
process involved in getting the policy endorsed and approved by the National
Executive Council it is now ready for implementation across the nation” Mr Kase
told journalist and staff at the press conference
But he said that only the lower level facilities such
as the Health Centers District, Level Hospitals and the Aid posts are free of
charge while due to management levels specialist treatments like Intermediate
and Major Operations as well as specialized tests example Biochemistry tests
will be reduced to half.
“The Health system in Papua New Guinea is managed by
different levels of the Government and if we have free health policy at all
levels there will be a problem that’s why Specialist care by specialist doctors
is reduced by half” Mr Kase said
He added that maternal and delivery services at all
levels for women was free in all Government funded hospitals
“This is one of the main aims of this policy to have
more mothers come to the health facilities we have one of the biggest number of
Maternal Mortality in the world and two to three years from now we would like
to reduce that or stop Maternal Mortality all together” Mr Kase said
He said health facilities would have no excuse to
execute the policy because funding was approved by the Government last year for
a roll out of K20 million to prepare for the gazettal for the policy
“In 2013 the Government had approved approximately
K20 million and it has already been given to all health facilities to replace
what they would have received from the patients” Mr Kase said
The break up is as follows K9 million for the 22
public hospitals K6 million for the Government run health facilities and K5
million for church run rural health facilities
He added that this year would also see a similar
amount of K20 million to support the policy, he also added that research would
be taken to appropriate for actual costs of running health facilities.
“We will be assessing costs of operating the health
facilities for proper and appropriate figures that can be sustainable and put
in a proper budget for funding” Mr Kase said
He said the
Department was also overseeing the rehabilitation of health facilities across
the country, improvement in the management of drugs and medical supplies, human
resource providing and agenda and their ongoing commitment and support for the
churches
“In order for the policy to be effected fully, we
need regular supplies of medicines, water must be running in the delivery rooms
and there are nurses and doctors to serve patients when they seek medical
attention” Mr Kase said
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