Babies die while politicians hike their pay
01 December 2010
BY SCOTT WAIDE
IT WAS 2002 - election year with campaign efforts at their peak - when, after a six hour trek though the jungle, I arrived at a school in the Tekin Valley in remote Oksapin in the Sandaun Province in north-west PNG.
The rain had just stopped when I began an interview with a local teacher, one of the few government representatives in this isolated part of PNG. The only government aid post in his village had closed a few years ago. The orderly left for the provincial capital, Vanimo, and never returned.
I wanted to know about infant and maternal mortality rates. At the time the teacher was the only person who could give me a fair analysis of the situation. Having come from Port Moresby where one relies on accessible and “reliable” statistics, I got straight into asking a series of questions to establish the number of mothers and children who had died in the last 12 months.
“We really don’t know,” he said. “We only know of those who died in this village and the next.”
He counted three infants and one mother who had died in his village in that election month alone. They died of complications that could have been remedied if they had easy access to a sub-health centre or even a medical orderly.
The nearest health center was a day’s walk from where we were. It would take two days to get there. But for pockets of small hamlets in the far off distance, getting to that health centre was an impossible dream.
The teacher couldn’t give me an exact number of children who died in the last 12 months. But he gave me an educated guess. He said between 15 and 30 babies die every year.
“Too many,” he said shaking his head. “Too many.”
He went on to tell me that people had come to accept the deaths of babies as part of their lives. In nearby villages, families would gather for the death of a respected elder. But for a baby who died at birth, only the father and the mother would be at the burial.
The father would take the tiny body to the back of the hut and bury it there. No one mourned. They were just nameless babies who would not even be recorded as statistics.
In the same year, I found myself in another part of Sandaun Province at a small government aid post. Half the concrete floor had collapsed. The medicine cabinet had only malarial tablets and liniment.
The medical orderly told me that a child had died 24 hours ago from dehydration. By the time he had been brought to the aid post, the orderly could not administer treatment. The child’s father came at the aid post a few minutes later and was told by the orderly: “If you want your son to live, run to the health center.”
The orderly said he got word in the afternoon that the father had made it to health centre but the child had died in his arms.
The situation may have improved in those areas but in other places it remains a reality for ordinary Papua New Guineans. What matters most to the ordinary person in the village are roads, bridges schools, good health services and most importantly, the ability to make money.
In 2008, the Treasury released figures which showed how much money was being wasted. The 68-page report outlined how the government more than doubled spending from K202 million to K478 million. The expenses included car purchases, a K12M Canberra residence, K100,000 for pipes and drums for the Correctional Services Band and K65,000 for the Institute of Medical Research’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
In 2009, Members of Parliament paid themselves K10 million in accommodation and motor vehicle allowances. One government backbencher said immediately after the decision that he would “give all the allowances back to parliament.” In contrast, then Public Service Minister (now Treasurer), Peter O’Neill, said allowances which MPs were getting were “far below what was needed to meet the amounts charged by real estate companies.”
Meanwhile hospitals around PNG were experiencing a dire shortage of drugs and medical supplies. It was also a year when several hundred settlers were made homeless in Port Moresby after police raids. A year in which Papua New Guineans struggled with high food costs.
Now Members of Parliament have again just voted to give themselves a 52% pay rise. On average each MP will get about K77,000 annually.
All this against a gloomy backdrop of high infantry mortality and new outbreaks of cholera in the country.
After reading PNG Attitude on the weekend, I then read in the Sydney Morning Hearld, a brief article about the defence force visiting some outstation areas in order to provide health support to villagers; the first patrols to visit for what may have been 30 years.
Marian and I chatted ourselves into depression about what was in place in our days in New Ireland, pre Independence and Popondeeta post Independence.
The late Madge Kenny, who was Matron of Kavieng Hospital before Marian, would regularly go on health patrols to Southern New Ireland. Marian would also travel down the island to areas and aidposts.
There was also a New Irelander, Pitali, a health officer who would do regular patrols to outlying islands and outstations and would bring in patients sufffering from TB, leprosy or other ailments.
Marian said he knew every TB patient in the Province and if they had not returned voluntarily for check ups he would go out and bring them in himself.
At Popondetta in the early 1980's there was a Scottish VSO, nutritionist Katy Watt who, on her meagre budget, would go off on patrol and bring back children and their mothers who were malnourished.
The malnourishment was often a result of food taboos for pregnant women and woman who had given birth. When she returned to the UK the patrols ceased.
I have always felt that an effective and well financed health, education and police force provide the neccessities for any society in order to develop and progress.
Having said that I was also a little more tolerant of the lack of support in PNG, post Independence, as it struggled to stand alone as a developing country, but I became even more frustrated when it was not happening in the developed country of Australia where, as far as I was concerned, there were no excuses.
The well written articles in the latest PNG Attitude hopefully will reach the right people but as teacher and nurse, Marian and I find the situation very depressing as the mismanagement and corruption continue to spread as a vicious malignancy with no immediate cure in sight while the majority of the good people of PNG, young and old, suffer quietly and helplessly back in their village.
Posted by: Peter Comerford | 06 December 2010 at 12:10 PM
Jeremia - I've spent quite a few nights at the Port Moresby General Hospital's emergency section. My son is asthmatic and sometimes needs medication early in the morning.
Once we travelled from Gerehu to Port Moresby General only to find that they had no cups for the nebuliser. The nurses were overworked. There were people bleeding on the floor.
We had to rush back to Gerehu to get a cup and plastic oxygen tubes because the hospital didn't have any. Then we had to wait until 5 am for a nurse to arrive to give him a shot and have him checked.
Posted by: Scott Waide | 05 December 2010 at 10:35 AM
This is quite interesting - more like the approach of the barefoot doctors?
Oxfam are distributing basic hygiene kits to villages in Cholera-affected areas. Including cheap re-hydration kits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LAM_wLKXYM
Yeah, I know its an ad for Oxfam, but is seems eminently practical and useful to me. If Oxfam can do a quite simple and effective thing like this, why not AusAID?
Posted by: Peter Kranz | 03 December 2010 at 03:24 PM
Yes, Jeremiah, I agree, the good teachers do a wonderful job.
But I hear that some are becoming depressed and disillusioned and no doubt, will feel more apathetic when they read about the huge rise in the salaries of the Members of Parliament.
The Education Department has been given a large slice of the budget for next year. I wonder whether it will allow the good teachers to be given a pay rise.
Posted by: Barbara Short | 03 December 2010 at 02:42 PM
Bernard - I am sure in today’s politics, the sort of behaviours that you liberated falls short of the standards that a politician should maintain in this time and age.
When we condone these attitudes in the pretext of traditional norms, people in high office especially in the public service also take this excuse to abuse, misuse and misappropriate.
This is PNG, we have a system where yours comes first and others last in any endeavours. There are ideals in each side of the coin, however, for PNG to stop this trend let them look at the country as a whole and take themselves as stewards.
I don’t think a pay rise would directly result in the elimination of poverty, lack of rural development and poor infant mortality amongst others, which Scott Waide is venting for.
It will definitely cause expectation for those that have been cultured to rise. Interestingly there will be more mouths to feed before the 2012 elections.
The public servants in this country have been blamed for the negative outcome of this public service machinery. The faithful teachers of PNG in this case, through self sacrifice, have brought you and me up to this stage where we can read and write.
How much was their pay rise over the last 5 to 10 years? They have not complained. This is a true reflection of labour of love for this country. How much they are paid is not an issue.
For this small humble group of Papua New Guineans, despite how many mouths they feed at home, how many societal contributions they make, they are a true reflection of commitment and service.
Posted by: Jeremiah Ten | 03 December 2010 at 11:21 AM
Is the pay hike fair or unfair?
Why do national leaders get a pay rise, while hard working public servants and others in the lower tiers of government are left trying to manage the little they are given.
A mountain of facts highlighting the lack of effective health services, poor road conditions, high prices of goods and high real estate rates, all cause ordinary citizens to ponder the nature of the increase.
In a traditional family setting a father is the authority. He has the moral responsibility to look after his family. Faced with a scenario where he has a sick son who needs urgent medical treatment, is it wise for him to go out and spend all the money he has on entertaining his friends?
A good father values highly the welfare of his family. Therefore, he acts in the best interest of those he cares for.
The government as the highest authority of the land is charged with the responsibility of looking after the welfare of its citizens. If those who are in power act in their own self interest, what good would that bring to society?
If that is the case, than it is better to go back to the original state of nature where anarchy created a conducive setting for egoist behaviour.
Why spend money on entertaining your friends when your son is at home suffering from a serious pain in his stomach, while waiting patiently for you to return home with the medicine you promised to buy for him.
However, people have develop that cargo cult mentality where when they see a parliamentarian they see money.
From observation, when a parliamentarian goes to his electorate, he showers the people with money. As a result, the people now have this understanding that this so and so leader equals money.
They have high expectations and are addicted to free handouts, this blinds them from analysing what type of leader he is, and what principles he stands for.
PNG leaders, in comparison to ordinary people, have a very huge responsibility to look after their family, their village, their voters, and their electorate. They spend a lot of money taking care of those people who they represent, unlike public servants who only have to look after their own family.
Reviewing the father-son analogy from an other angle, this time the child is the parliamentarian's family, village, voters and electorate. Looking after them is draining, so he needs an increase to help.
Condemning the pay rise based on a national level is shallow, to make a clear judgement the local level dynamics are also paramount in understanding the logic of the increase.
Finally, PNG has all the ingredients needed for a revolution but there is no chef to cook. Also there is no sense of nationalism.
The majority of the people are focused on what they will do in order to survive every day in their small isolated societies like in the pre-colonial days, no one is idealistic.
Posted by: Bernard Yegiora | 03 December 2010 at 07:23 AM
In todays The National, MP for Telefomin, Peter Iwei, is reported as trying to claim his district support grant before Christmas, as certain projects he had organised were dependent on it.
He was told he had to pay K10,000 into the personal account of a staff member of the Department of National Planning in order to get the money released.
He perhaps foolishly did this from his own pocket. A cheque was then released to the value of K12.4 million - K2.4 million was for Telefomin market rehabilitation while K10 million was for the Telefomin hospital project.
Iwei and his consultant went to the bank, with the photocopied remittance advice, and were told the cheque was worthless and a fake.
He says: “A highly organised syndicate is operating within the Department of National Planning, collecting commission in thousands of kina in return for the release of government development grants, which are then paid by fake cheques.
"This is corruption, and something has to be done quickly. There is a lot of ... stealing in Waigani, and people in the villages are suffering.”
Posted by: Peter Kranz | 02 December 2010 at 05:21 PM
Scott - This is only a tip of an iceberg. Look at the appalling road conditions at Morata, Gordons, Nine Mile.
Try spending an evening at the Port Moresby General Hospital Accident and Emergency, people are virtually dying right in front of you. Go up to Ward 3, no doctor on standby, not enough beds, no specialist to attend to tumours.
If this is happening in Port Moresby, what is there for our village people.
Look at how the accountability of the District Services Improvement Program is ensured. MPs are running around with cheque books, circumvention of procedures by them and their cronies.
Look at the bigger picture. If the parliament can postpone the November sitting, who will speak for those back at the village.
It is about time Noel Anjo's plea was heard by far and near. If we do not speak, who else can. How much time and room can we afford these fellows to run this country down.
Interestingly the Speaker of the National Parliament has not delivered in his own electorate. He has built a castle in Morata, run a brand new Toyota VX to a wreck in six months and holidays in Cairns at the expense of the people of PNG.
If we do not speak, who else.
Look at the investments undertaken by the West New Britain Province goverment. Who is for the people and by the people? No one.
Bro, continue the good work in highlighting these indicators for destruction.
Posted by: Jeremiah Ten | 02 December 2010 at 02:41 PM