Fundraising for Andrew Molen

 

Morobe Show on again

The 2008 Morobe Show will be held at the Lae Showground on Saturday, October 18^th and Sunday, October 19th, 2008.

The Morobe Agricultural Show is a major tourist attraction and showcases the agricultural, industrial, commercial and cultural aspects of Lae and the Morobe Province.

It plays a major role in the dissemination of information on cultivation, crops, diseases and breeding, as well as being the largest entertainment event in the province.

This is the 48th show since 1959 and, like its predecessors, will pull in people from all over Papua New Guinea as well as tourists from overseas.

Goroka hospital goes online in a first for Papua New Guinea

Dr William Mol giving the thumbs up to the Goroka General Hospital website
On the 7th of March 2008, the Goroka General Hospital was honoured to be visited by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Screenshot of the hospital's new website

Goroka General Hospital has taken a giant step forward into the information age and e-health revolution by being the first hospital in the country to set up a website.

The website http://www.ggh.org.pg/ was set up recently by the hospital’s volunteer IT manager Robert Schilt.

“Goroka General Hospital is committed to embracing Information Technology (IT) as part of its overall strategic direction, which is to enhance and improve the delivery of effective Health Services to people of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea,” said a proud hospital CEO Dr Joseph Apa.

In addition to the commissioning of this website, the hospital has already implemented several other IT-related projects over the past 18 months under Schilt, which include:

Establishment up of a Business Resource Center (BRC) that has a state-of-the art IT training facility with 12 PC’s, where regular computer training is conducted and offered to hospital staff.
Deployment of approximately 50 PC’s and laptops to various hospital departments.
Availability of Internet services such as the World Wide Web and email to staff through the Business Resources Center including access to the HINARI Online Subscription.
Development and programming of several hospital information systems (HIS) including laboratory results application, medical stores application, attendance register and various statistical reporting tools to assist departments with their reporting requirements.
Development of a hospital Intranet which is now almost complete. The Intranet is an online resource that will only be made available to hospital staff; and will make information such as staff telephone directories, standard forms and other internal resources easily accessible. It is envisaged that all future hospital information systems and applications will be deployed through the hospital's Intranet.

“We are also very excited to announce that all of the software and systems deployed at the hospital have been done using an Open Source Software (OSS) framework,” Dr Apa said.

“This approach has saved the hospital the high costs associated with the licensing of proprietary software systems such as Microsoft.

“This website will continue to evolve and we already have planned to launch the following web services in the near future:

An online forum for PNG doctors to discuss and share relevant clinical information.
A member’s section which will give registered users access to additional information.
Hospital news items.
Links to useful health resources.
Other features.

“So stay tuned and in the meantime, if you need to contact the Hospital, you may do so by sending an email to info@ggh.org.pg.”

Schilt said both Internet access and access to the HINARI service was a first for hospital staff in Papua New Guinea.

“The Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative (HINARI) provides free or very low cost online access to the major journals in medical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries,” he explained.

“HINARI was launched in January 2002, with some 1500 journals from six major publishers: Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley, following the principles in a Statement of Intent signed in July 2001.

“Twenty-two additional publishers joined in May 2002, bringing the total number of journals to over 2000.

“Since that time, the numbers of participating publishers and of journals and other full-text resources has grown continuously.

“Today more than 70 publishers are offering their content in HINARI and others will soon be joining the programme.

“An evaluation is in progress which will determine the long term future of HINARI.”

For those familiar with website design the original site was developed with an Open Source application called Joomla.

This new and revamped website has been put together for Goroka General Hospital using Wordpress.

“Some folks would like to think of Wordpress as solely a platform for writing blogs but as I’m learning it is far more powerful than that,” Schilt said.

“Due to its structure, available functionality and Content Management System (CMS) abilities it can easily be used to create fully fledged websites.

“I will shortly add Forum functionality using an add-on product called ‘bbPress’.

“The Forum will be made available to Health professionals with access to the Internet in Papua New Guinea to share ideas and resources and will naturally be called the ‘PNG Health Forum’.

“The new website is still lacking a lot of content but hopefully, with time and quality contributions from hospital management and staff, we will see it become a valuable online resource for the health professionals in the Highlands region and also the rest of PNG.”

Access to health services is a right and not a privilege for the 432,972 people of the Eastern Highlands province.

For the past 38 years, both national and provincial governments have been achieving this through the provision of stable and essential health services to our people.

As a result, the provincial life expectancy has increased from 53.6 years in 1990 to the current 56.1 years, which is higher than the current national average.

Goroka General Hospital is located in the picturesque Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.

The hospital provides specialist health services to the entire Highlands Region

The website http://www.ggh.org.pg/ is a giant step for the health system in Papua New Guinea.

CHALLENGES REMAIN IN EDUCATION

Many challenges remain in the education sector despite the millions of dollars spent trying to provide quality education for all children in the Pacific region.

Speaking at the opening of the three-day workshop for senior education officials from the Forum Island Countries to discuss the review of the Forum Basic Education Action Plan in Nadi, Fiji, today, Dr Helen Tavola, the Forum Secretariat’s Social Policy Adviser said countries in the region need to work together to meet these challenges.

“This review shows us that there are many issues in education that unite us as a region and it makes good sense that we grapple with them together, to combine both human and financial  resources where possible,” Dr Tavola said.

The review of the Forum Basic Education Action Plan mandated by the region’s Education Ministers last November has been undertaken in the last several months and held consultations with over 200 people around the region.

“In this region we all have to grapple with the concept of regionalism. What makes us a region; what can we do at a regional level that adds value to the national level; and how we can fit in with the broader regional mandates of the Pacific Plan. This is not easy,” Dr Tavola said.

“Many people have an underlying fear of regional initiatives; especially if there is a perception that funding might go into regional endeavours rather than country level ones. It can be quite difficult to think beyond the national level but regionalism is a reality that we all must live with.

”We should remember, however, that regional activities do not limit the sovereign right of countries to determine their own national goals and priorities; neither do they restrict bilateral development programmes and activities. Regional activities must enhance what is done at the country level,” she said.

Dr Tavola pointed out that education does not exist in a vacuum and education systems tend to reflect the societies that they exist in.

“When there are crises in countries, education systems also often undergo crises. Many countries have what I call ‘lines in the sand’ referring to before and after significant events: states of emergencies; coups; economic crises; economic reforms; ethnic troubles; riots; hurricanes; pre and post Compact etc. The converse should be of course, that when countries are stable and prosper, education systems should flourish and to an extent we see that happening.”

Dr Tavola told the participants that the Leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum adopted a Vision in 2004 and despite education not explicitly being mentioned most of the high ideals in the Vision cannot be achieved without education, without an educated population.

“We are here to work together to find a way forward for supporting education at a regional level so that these goals articulated by our Leaders can be realised.”

The workshop is part of the review process which is being funded by the New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID).

For more information, contact Dr Helen Tavola at the Tanoa International Hotel in Nadi, Fiji on phone 679 672 0277 or email helent@forumsec.org.fj

 

Trupela Man

 

SUB-REGIONAL WORKSHOP TO DISCUSS WAYS TO INCREASE NUMBER OF WOMEN IN PACIFIC PARLIAMENTS

To consider ways to help increase and sustain the number of women in Pacific Parliaments through the use of special measures, officials and key representatives from four Pacific Islands Countries (PICs) will attend a sub-regional workshop in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea,  25 – 26 September.

The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), AusAID, UNDP Pacific Centre, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, International Development Law Organisation (IDLO) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) are organising the workshop.

Over 30 participants will be from the four Melanesian countries of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. 

Against the world average of 16 percent women Parliamentarians, the Pacific countries have the lowest average by region of 3.1 percent (excluding Australia and New Zealand).

 The Pacific region has five out of the eight countries in the world without any women in parliament.

The five countries are Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

“It is with these facts in mind that women parliamentarians from the Forum Island countries together with development partners, academics and civil society organizations agreed at a meeting in the Cook Islands in 2006 on the need to address barriers to women’s representation and participation in Pacific parliaments,” says Peter Forau, Acting Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

“This workshop supported by these development partners also supports the good governance pillar of the Pacific Plan specifically participatory democracy, consultative decision-making and electoral process. It is also in response to Forum Leaders’ directive in 2007 for member countries to explore ways to enhance participation, particularly by women in decision making processes and institutions, and in particular parliamentary processes,” says Mr Forau

Mr Forau said: “For many reasons, elections in the region have not been particularly favourable towards aspiring women candidates resulting in the low numbers of women in Pacific parliaments. One approach that has made a difference is the use of special measures. Their use in other parts of the world has led to significant increases in the number of women parliamentarians.”

Special measures include reserved seats and quotas and can also include electoral reforms aimed at improving the representation of women in parliament.

The organisers of the workshop hope participants who will be hearing from seasoned international experts and the experiences of Pacific champions such as Papua New Guineas’ lone woman parliamentarian Dame Carol Kidu, come away better informed about special measures and perhaps work on appropriate country strategies for discussion and consideration by policy-makers in their own countries.

Other similar workshops will be scheduled for the other sub-regions in the Pacific after the one in Papua New Guinea.

For more information, contact Dr Henry Ivarature, the Forum’s Regional Governance Adviser on phone 679 331 2600 or email henryi@forumsec.org.fj

 

Lest we forget

Lest we forget, Wednesday September 17^th is the 14^th anniversary of the twin volcanic eruptions which devastated Rabaul, East New Britain province, on this day in 1994.