Rachel Shisei

Government nurses all across Papua New Guinea have been facing devastating hardships while trying to serve the million population of our beautiful country. (Photo: Government nurse serving a patient in a busy clinic). 

Amidst corruption and negligence from the government to support and provide basic support for them, these nurses and community health workers continue to serve and care for the country’s sick population. They keep serving regardless of deteriorating health facilities, very short supply of drugs, no transportation to run their programs, understaffed, under paid with no recognition from the PNG government, the provincial government and from thugs in the communities who keep breaking and entering these health facilities and steal from these clinics that are not banks but medical clinics.

For a regular human being, these conditions are extremely harsh and especially in this century where money seems to be the prime need for survival, where every goods in the store is twice the price it used to be, you have rent to pay, you have to get on a public motor vehicle (PMV) to get to work, you have other family obligations as well as your own with kids in school and food for your table every night, are among the necessities of everyday life that one has to provide for. Adding to all of these problems is again the difficult conditions that are present in the work place. There is no support from the government. Madang town clinic has only 4 staff members and can only consult about 15 people per day but they see more than 50 sick people daily. Because of that the clinic runs out of drugs within a month. They have no transport so they cannot do mobile clinics in the villages. Often times these nurses would fish their own money to transport a patient to the Madang general hospital. In Jomba clinic, it’s the same situation, they are short staffed, there is a shortage of drugs in the clinic, they have no fridge to store vaccines, and their water is cut because they have outstanding water bills. It’s been over 10 years with no difference in their pay packages, there are absolutely no housing allowances for them and there are no compensation initiatives from the government to them. Thugs keep breaking into their clinics. On one occasion, these thugs stole the only microscope that Madang town clinic had. They have no security lights. There are no rooms to consult patients so every patient is crowded around for consultation with no privacy at all. And still these nurses continue to wake up every morning to go to work.

What makes them continue amidst all these obstacles?  ‘Because we care, said Sr. Barum, a nurse in one of Madang Province town clinic. We cannot send sick people away, they need our help and we must attend to them she says. When the Madang General hospital is taking in only referral cases, these patients end up in either the Jomba clinic or the Madang town clinic and we cannot turn these people away, they need our help! They are sick and they need us. We help the sick people regardless of all these issues that we are up against because it is our duty, she says.

These nurses’ are true national heroes! They are the reason why our people are still surviving despite all the run down health facilities. Through rain and shine, they are always there, ready to give a helping hand to the old, always there to take in a sick mother or a sick baby. They still serve us despite the many problems that they face. These are people that truly deserve our respect and our support. While minorities of us are lucky enough to afford medical attention from private clinics where every thing is available, the majority of our people still end up being served by faithful and hardworking nurses in clinics that do not have proper testing facilities to having little or no medical drugs at all.  Being sick is not never pleasant, it is a terrible feeling and those of us who have been sick would understand this, that when you enter a clinic, a rural one or one in town, and regardless of the condition of the clinic or the facilities or the availability of medical drugs, the moment one of these nurses comes to serve you, it makes you feel better already, psychologically, and puts you at ease because you know they will help you get better.  

So, the next time we are sick and we go to see these nurses, lets not complain that we haven’t been served well or demand that they do their jobs well. While it is our right to be treated if we are sick, we should also be mindful of situations like this that is present all over PNG.  We should show a little respect for our hardworking nurses like those in Madang and the rest of Papua New Guinea, from the most rural places to the ones in towns and cities.

Bless their kind hearts for the service they provide to us. They are true public servants.