Mother with child. Credit: dapiiiiit/flickr
By Rich Bowden
Developed Pacific countries such as Australia should do more to help combat the “horrific” maternal health crisis in Papua New Guinea, a Greens statement has said.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, said that PNG had the second highest maternal death rate in the world, a health crisis Australia could no longer afford to ignore.
The Senator made the remarks upon returning from the New Zealand Parliamentarians’ Group on Population and Development’s Open Hearing on Maternal Health in the Pacific, held in Wellington.
“Papua New Guinea has the second worst maternal mortality rates in the world – it’s in our backyard and we can’t ignore it,” said the Greens spokesperson on the status of women. “[It] is the largest recipient of Australian aid funding, yet the stories of maternal death show we need to work harder to save vulnerable lives.”
She added that though new funding guidelines introduced by Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith last month which removed restrictions on medical advice offered to women were a marked improvement, more needed to be done.
In addition to funding fact finding programs, Senator Hanson-Young called on the Australian Government to increase funding for initiatives aimed at training midwives and health professionals.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young. Cred: PabloZ
“We need a commitment from countries like Australia to fund training for more health workers and midwives to work on the ground with families,” she said.
‘One in 20 Dying’
The Senator’s call comes as the New Zealand Herald reported that Papua New Guinea obstetrician Gunzee Gawin has requested more assistance for training health workers in his country.
Also attending the Hearing on Maternal Health, he told the Herald that “…the risk of a woman dying in childbirth in PNG was one in 20, compared with one in 10,000 in New Zealand.”
“Three years in Australia I didn’t see any single maternal death, I’ve been two years back home and I’ve already seen 15.”
Dr Gawin said there was a major shortage of trained health professionals to deal with the crisis.
“We have the facilities there but it’s not manned.”
He added that retaining trained personnel was also a problem with many leaving to pursue higher wages.
“We have this problem where we train people and they are so qualified to go and work in Australia or New Zealand that they leave, or some go to the private sector because its more lucrative,” he said.
The Parliamentary Group is to hear from a number of health organisations before putting its submission before the New Zealand Government.
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Thanks for fixing the caption
(Of course, the issues are similar, whether the person in the image is in PNG, West Papua, or wherever.)
David Gil (dapiiiiit)
Thanks for using my photograph (top of page) and providing the appropriate credit. However, the caption is incorrect, as the picture was not taken in PNG but rather in Manokwari, in the western half of the island of New Guinea, which is part of Indonesia.
David Gil (dapiiiiit)