MMJV on the way to achieving community health post concept

It is a health service only to be dreamed of by most rural communities in Papua New Guinea, where typically one busy aid post orderly struggles to meet the needs of a long line of patients, with a short supply of medicines.

The new model is a community health post (CHP) manned by three health professionals, one specialising in the health needs of mothers and children, another in public health and one focused on healthy living programmes.

Morobe Mining Joint Ventures (MMJV) under its health infrastructure programme is on the way to achieving this ideal arrangement, meeting targets announced recently by the National Department of Health.

The department said in a public announcement last month that rural health system strengthening would occur through the rollout of the CHP concept.

The NDoH said the CHP was not all about building new infrastructure, but refurbishing and maintaining existing aid-posts and meeting standards and status set for a community health post.

Each CHP will ideally be manned by three health workers.

The department said the CHP was not a new concept as some provinces already had similar arrangements under different names.

It is about strengthening what is there already.

MMJV, the operator of the Hidden Valley mine and the developer of the Wafi project, is already working towards achieving the CHP concept through the construction and maintenance of a number of aid posts in the area of its operations in the Bulolo and Huon Gulf districts of Morobe province.

The company is constructing four new aid posts for its landowner villages near the Hidden Valley mine, at Nauti, Kwembu and Winima and the Wafi-Golpu project at Babuaf.

There are also plans to maintain existing aid-posts.

The national government’s plan is to strengthen rural health services in all 89 districts by 2020.

MMJV’s health infrastructure programme is aligned to support the plan within its area of operations.

MMJV is committed to providing improved medical services to the many thousands of people living not only in the communities located in its footprint of operations but throughout the district.

The company is working closely with the provincial health division to achieve this outcome.