PNG Healthy Communities
A growing population is putting intense pressure on the health services available to PNG communities especially in rural areas. Village aid posts and rural health centres are commonly understaffed and under resourced, and many close due to financial problems. Our Healthy Communities project supports the operations of health facilities in the Oro and Central Provinces to ensure that high quality primary healthcare is available to all who need it.
The life-blood of the rural health system
Community Health Workers are the life-blood of the rural health system in PNG. They provide primary healthcare in remote areas including life-saving immunisations to babies and children, pre and post-natal care to pregnant women and new mothers, and access to vital medicines and drugs including treatment for malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, diarrhoea and pneumonia.
We support the training, postings and salaries of Community Health Workers into village aid posts and rural health centres in the Oro and Central Provinces. We are also developing training plans to ensure that a sufficient supply of dedicated health workers are available to the catchment region in the long run.
Life-saving medicines and resources
In order to support our Community Health Workers, we also provide a regular supply of life-saving drugs, medicines and other medical resources to aid posts, health centres and the Kokoda memorial hospital. With the country experiencing significant shortages in access to drugs and medicines, our supply chains save lives and enable health workers to be able to provide high quality and timely medical treatment to all who need it.
Our supply of vaccinations for babies and children save thousands of lives each year including our response to the country’s devastating polio outbreak, which our community health workers responded to in a timely manner and the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Life-long learning
We also provide ongoing learning and professional development opportunities for our Community Health Workers and Health Assistants. These learning opportunities include specialised skills development in areas critical to the delivery of rural health care such as child and maternal health, nutrition, and eye health.
We also work closely with partners, No Roads to Health, to ensure that our community health workers receive regular mentoring and supervision. Expeditions delivered by No Roads to Health support the regular supervision and mentoring experiences in the health workers home aid posts to ensue that they have access to support when required and pathways for assistance when required.
Keeping communities healthy in times of COVID-19
In the face of a global pandemic, Community Heath Workers also find themselves at the forefront of response activities while maintaining primary healthcare to their communities.
Project Airborne, KTF’s dedicated COVID-19 response activities, supports our health workers with the essential supplies and awareness materials needed to enable them to continue to keep their communities and safe and well during the pandemic. With a focus on prevention, health workers conduct awareness activities in their villages and undertake health patrols across their catchment areas to provide education around ‘niupela pasin’, or new normal, prevention measures including hand washing, mask wearing, physical distancing and isolation. Vital hygiene supplies support their critical messaging to help prevent the spread of the virus.
For full details on Project Airborne, click here.
Where do we support health facilities?
Our PNG Healthy Communities operates in the Oro and Central Provinces only including aid posts and health centres along and around the Kokoda Track. The following map outlines our current PNG Healthy Communities project locations:
Healthy Communities is delivered in partnership with the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) with the support of number of corporate and private partners, and the general public, in Australia and PNG.
