Super Hospital just one more way to bleed us dry

By Robin Lillicrapp

It sounds very much like the Pollies who originated this [super hospital] project have been rebuffed as to their earlier search for funds.

Now, to save face, they are obstinately pursuing their illogical and potentially parasitical dream.

Who is to pay for this mess. Why, PNG taxpayers, of course. As other contributors have said, through siphoning off funds necessarily earmarked for maintaining already depleted regional services.

It’s all an insanity that demands a facility separate to PMC to treat its dumb stupidity.

As to why PNG leaders are pursuing such a course, it pays to note the relevance of history. My guess would be that Waigani intend to build this albatross and then flog it off to private investors.

Greg Palast in a recent article pursues solutions to the money madness that grips nations the world over as ordinary citizens stagger beneath the load of debt obligation imposed upon them without any real degree of informed consent:

“Remove the Bloodsuckers” TheExcavator May 8, 2010

The solution to the Greek crisis and the global debt crisis, is simple according to investigative reporter Greg Palast. In his 2001 article called “The Globaliser Who Came In From The Cold,” Palast suggests that we should “remove the bloodsuckers,” who are the global financial wizards that work at the IMF, WTO and the World Bank and practice the art of dark finance.

Palast details the step-by-step plan of how these transnational economic parasites bring entire nations to ruin, which he learned after he gained a hold of some precious World Bank documents that laid out the banksters’ game-plan of how to harness the financial will of sovereign nations and use it against them. Palast also talked with Joseph Stiglitz, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank and a Nobel prize winner, for the piece.

Step one, Palast recounts, is ‘Briberization,” and it involves the criminal global financiers paying national leaders of poverty-stricken nations hefty amounts of dough for the direct sale of public assets to oligarchical corporations and private foreign banks. All the illegal dough of the traitorous leaders is then safely stashed in secret Swiss bank accounts, miles and miles away from the nation’s angry citizens whose livelihoods and incomes are stripped in the process.
Step two is what is referred to as the “Hot Money” cycle by Stiglitz. This is how the cycle works, as described by Palast, “Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation’s reserves can drain in days, hours. And when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation’s own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30%, 50% and 80%.” Step two is mainly about hijacking of pension funds, gutting employment benefits, and other social safety nets that people work all their lives for.

To put it another way, the criminal oligarchic parasites hypnotize a nation to sleep, bend it over, strip it of its clothes, and then rape it. That is the way the secret relationship works behind doors. The transnational banksters are all about economic rape. Rape of public assets, rape of pension funds, rape of electrical and water systems, rape of currencies, rape of everything that secures nations and keeps them alive.

And when the nation finally wakes up late in the afternoon, it realizes that it was robbed deaf, dumb, and blind the night before. It also discovers that it acquired an economic STD, so the pain has only begun and recovery is far from sight. An even bigger revelation awaits the nation, which will cause panic in the streets, and thrust the nation further into the economic abyss.

The people then begin to find out that the vampires from the IMF and World Bank never left the night before, they were hiding in the nation’s economic closet, where they’ve patiently waited to put the third step into effect, which is a sharp rise in food and gas prices, and other commodities that keep a nation running from day to day on an even keel. This step eventually leads to what Palast calls “Step-Three-and-a-Half,” and what Stiglitz brands as “The IMF riot.” It is attributed to the IMF because they basically engineer the collapse through their crippling policies and proposals for social spending cuts, which create the conditions for riots, public rage and civil unrest.

We are all familiar with the images from these riots around the world, they’ve taken place in Indonesia, Argentina, and now were seeing them in Greece. They include burning buildings. Streets in mayhem. Thuggish Stormtroopers protecting the Capitol and beating kids. Old and young fighting back with pots and pans. Entire roads up in flames. Palast writes:
The IMF riots (and by riots I mean peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks and teargas) cause new panicked flights of capital and government bankruptcies. This economic arson has it’s bright side – for foreign corporations, who can then pick off remaining assets, such as the odd mining concession or port, at fire sale prices.

The fourth and last step is called “poverty reduction strategy” by the World Bank/IMF, or if you don’t like the Big Brother coinage, the more apt term is “monopoly market politics.” People often mistake this last step with free trade policies, but one important thing to keep in mind, as Palast says, is that this is “free trade by the rules of the World Trade Organization and World Bank,” in other words, it is corporatist-monopolist trade in the guise of free market capitalism.

Speaking to Alex Jones in March 2002 about the article, Palast said that the IMF/World Bank/WTO policies amount to “systematically tearing nations apart.” The global economic illusionists have done it to African and Latin American nations, and now they have their bloody, slug-infested eyes set on European and North American nations.

And the economic parasites never have new tricks up their sleeves, but everywhere their tricks work exactly the same, because they’re usually backed up by military muscle, so you’re condemned to believe in them, or face death. But not everybody believes in them. Certainly not Venezuela. They showed them the door. With guns, of course. But guns need not be involved.

Recently, Germany, America, England, and France supported the IMF’s call for a global bank tax, which would be dedicated to a fund that would secure the payment of future bank bailouts. Canada is the only nation in the Western hemisphere to oppose the tax. But it is not the only nation in the world. Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, and Australia are also voicing their dissent.

Simon Nixon writes in The Wall Street Journal that the proposed IMF bank tax doesn’t address structural problems within the global financial system, and should not be implemented. He further says:

But while taxing the banks may be a legitimate way to raise revenue, the IMF is on weaker ground with its claim that its proposed taxes directly address weaknesses in the global financial system exposed by the crisis. It argues that its proposed Financial Stability Contribution (FSC) would charge banks for the cost of implicit government guarantees by levying a fee on their liabilities less their equity and insured deposits, similar to the Obama administrations proposed bank-liability tax. The IMF recommends the money raised goes into a fund to cover the cost of future bailouts. Aware such a fund could encourage banks to run bigger risks, the IMF says governments must also introduce special resolution regimes allowing regulators to seize and restructure failing banks.

The IMF is also proposing a Financial Activity Tax (FAT), which would tax bank profits and banker pay as a way of keeping a lid on bonus payments, or what the IMF calls “excessive rents.” This would be similar to one-off taxes introduced this year by the U.K. and France in response to public outrage over this year’s giant bank bonuses.

But these proposals address only the symptoms and not the cause of the financial crisis. The real challenge for policy makers is to eliminate altogether—or at least minimize as far as possible— the implicit government guarantees that fueled excessive risk-taking in the boom and reduce the systemic risks posed by the failure of large banks that have left taxpayers in this crisis saddled with such huge bills.

That can only be done by much higher capital requirements and radical structural reform. The IMF is right to point out that higher capital requirements are themselves a form of tax. Indeed, from a macroprudential point of view the two approaches may achieve similar outcomes. But taxes don’t provide the same incentive for institutions to avoid excessive risk taking.

Allister Heath,( author} has similar complaints about the IMF proposals. He writes:

There is a vital distinction between asking banks to pay a fee to finance this wind-down fund – and telling them the cash will be used for future bailouts, which would fuel more moral hazard. A related, crucial reform would be to set-up automatic procedures for the private sector to recapitalise troubled banks; this would allow bail-ins, as opposed to bail-outs. Banks could issue contingent convertible securities (CoCos); these debt instruments would convert to equity if capital ratios fell below an agreed level. Ordinary debt could also be turned into equity if a bank were to run out of capital. These ideas would transform banking, make it more market-based, introduce incentives to control risk and protect taxpayers. It is a tragedy the IMF and politicians are so obsessed with taxing everything that moves that they are incapable of a grown-up debate.

A democratically mature reform would include smart regulation of credit and financial institutions, the reintroduction of public banking, the reduction of public subsidies to undeserving corporations and banks, the reinstatement of the principles of free economic competition, and lastly, the termination of the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, i.e. the “bloodsuckers,” whose agenda is to establish an oligarchical grip on nations and peoples, and deprive them of all prosperity, as well as economic and political independence.

Another email challenge sent to Zibe

Another email challenge has been sent to health Minister Sasa Zibe, asking him to come out and defend his plans for a K500 million ‘super hospital’. The email, which is now circulating widely on the internet, and was authored by Yakam Kelo, was forwarded to the Minister by Joshua Brixton. It is the third public email send to Zibe by Brixton in recent days. So far there has been no response from the Minister.

Mr Minister,

Why don’t your Government spent half of that money to improve Angau Memorial Hospital which is central to Momase, Highlands and NGI which should also cater for referrals from those regions?

Mr Minister just spare a short moment to read my short story.

I lost my mother two years ago at Angau because it does not have the facilities and the qualified doctors to treat her.

My mum suffered from an infection that develops around her pollopian tube when she took family planning contraceptive some ten years ago.

The nurses and doctors at Angau asked her to go back home and just control her diets especially protein and oily food stuff.

They knew very well that she wont make it simply because they cant treat her with their current expertise and resources.

This is a big killer for a lot of our mothers who took family planning some 10- 20 years ago. Now they are suffering from the side effects of this family planning method.

Mr Minister, do you want all our mothers and sisters from Momase, Highlands and NGI to fly to Port Moresby to your Super Hospital to get treatment or be told to go home and wait till their times comes?

Is the super hospital affordable by ordinary citizens and can your people from Huon Gulf fly to POM to get treatment there since Angau does not have the facilities to treat them?.

Over to your Mr Minister?

Yakam

Zibe confronted with comments posted on PNGexposed

Joshua Brixton, who has issued an open challenge to Health Minister Sasa Zibe to explain his plans for a private ‘super hospital’, has also sent the Minister copies (see below) of some of the comments posted on this blog by readers in response to the super hospital idea.

By copying his email to hundreds of people in PNG and overseas Brixton has adopted a tactic used successfully by this blog in its Conversation with the PMs daughter earlier this year – a conversation which led to the government sending lawyers to court to try and overturn the injunction against publication of the Finance Inquiry report.

We now wait to see whether Zibe is prepared to answer his critics.

1. maisy
   October 19, 2010 at 1:20 pm |

   By the way my good minister, this is what ordinary papua New Guineans think of your grand plans, your choice of words  and your PMC hospital.

   Highly Defamatory !! Who is advising this dude?

2. Maggie H
   October 19, 2010 at 3:43 pm |

   Sasa Zibe is another idiot. Having a person like him as an MP is bad enough, but as a Minister is a joke – and everyone knows it. Don’t think Dr. Mola will take the little fellow from Lae too seriously. None of the rest of us do.

3. Mangi Simbu
   October 20, 2010 at 6:36 am |

   When was the last time he saw the conditions of the health facilities around the country? While this PMC might be a nice addition to the health facilities in POM, what about the rest of the country – both big cities such as Lae, Goroka and Hagen but also small outposts like Mutzing, Okapa, and Wau? When will people in these areas see some improvement in the level of health care that they deserve?

4. T Mero
   October 20, 2010 at 10:26 am |

   I had to read his response twice to make sense of it and it’s still confusing to me. I mean, how can he blame Dr. Mola for our low health status? Apalling! O Dear, our government with all it’s members and Ministers have turned out to be a real joke.

5. Uppz Dii Original
   October 20, 2010 at 10:55 am |

   I appeal to Dr. Mola not to bother about this email because it is totally baseless, dumbfounded and very light as far as contructive discussions can go. I see it as a personal attack rather than constructive discussion. Come one Sasa you can do much much better than that. What you have done is cheap!!!!

6. Mangi Simbu
   October 20, 2010 at 12:08 pm |

   I’d call him retarded but then that would offend the truly mentally challenged!

7. Lae Meri
   October 21, 2010 at 11:00 am |

   I would like to ask Minister Zibe what is going on with the medical board. It is a joke and full of corrupt practices. Trying to deal with them and get honest answers is impossible as they are giving overseas GP`S permission to operate as surgeons when they are not qualified. We are going to end up with our very own Patel here if they are not careful.. Its a very dangerous practice and I`m sure my PNG wantok doctors who have studied long and hard to get speciality accreditation would be appalled. Be careful of some expat doctors that you think are qualified because they are not.

8. meri png
   October 21, 2010 at 5:24 pm |

   His email is not only childish he sees it as a personal attack. Instead of publicly coming out and telling everyone why he thinks the international hospital going to a good and tangible solution to PNGs health issues he writes this totally pathetic email, which shows no professionalism and a lack of understanding that with developments such as this; theres always going to be opposition, not everyone will agree with your ‘bright idea’. What he as the health minister should have done is take on board Dr Molas criticisms and evaluate them and see if hes points are valid, dont just thrown them out like that, and take it as an attack. Dr Molas ideas are a mirror image of many other PNGeans too. PNGeans who are concerned about their health and their childrens health. Get a grip Zibe and stop being so niave. You just show irresponsible you are, because you’re not taking into account other ideas and opninion as well, especially since its coming from someone who knows the health system more than you do.

9. Patriot Missile
   October 21, 2010 at 11:18 pm |

   Lets all email Good ol’ Sasa and tell him what we think about his grand plans for PNG’s medical development!!! Why don’t we??

Open challenge to Health Minister Zibe

Joshua Brixton has issued an open challenge to Health Minister Sasa Zibe in an email which he has distributed to hundreds of people. Brixton says Zibe needs to stop hiding and come out and explain to the people why the government is investing money in a super hospital rather than improving existing health facilities for ordinary Papua New Guineans.

Here is the text of Brixton’s email:

This email serves as an open challenge to the Health Minister Sasa Zibe who has lost the plot.  Sasa has to tell Papua New Guinea who is driving the issue of that new “Super Hospital” that he so wants to build. Why can’t he spend money on Pom Gen and make it better???  below is a publication on the PNG exposed blog which shows how low the minister can go to attack a health professional via email. I don’t support Dr. Glen Mola eith becuase I think Mola is just protecting his interests. Mola has a private hospital that profits from ordinary Papua New Guineans. It works to mola’s advantage that PomGen is in the state it is.

However, I want to know what benefits does a super hospital bring for PNG. It will serve only the Rich and life will be the same for all of us who cannot afford  it.   Come out and explain yourself Sasa!!  We deserve better. Improve the pubic health system.  I invite you all to email Sasa Zibe and tell him what you think!!! this is his email address: s.k.zibe@global.net.pg It’s time leaders stop hiding behind policies and come out and explain to the public whom they represent.

‘Super Hospital’ could jeopardise entire PNG hospital sector

Yesterday we published a media report about Dr Mola’s research on the proposed Pacific Medical Centre  - research which has been published by the National Research Institute.

Today we bring you the whole of Dr Mola’s research findings.

Read the Executive Summary below or download the whole report.

Executive Summary

When the Minister for Health announced that he had engaged American consultants to assist in the planning of a new ‘super hospital’ for Port Moresby, called the Pacific Medical Centre (PMC), he argued that this high-tech hospital would meet the health needs of PNG.

This argument is incorrect and misleading. Diverting scarce health funds to this project could lead to the complete collapse of the struggling PNG hospital sector and a massive deterioration in health care capacity for ordinary Papua New Guineans.

Many citizens view health policy as too complex and technical to be publicly debated. Yet it is ordinary citizens who suffer the rundown status of rural and urban health facilities. Currently, some sixty percent of rural aid posts are closed and many health centres can no longer provide quality primary health care and emergency referral for complicated cases.

The public must take an active interest in this issue. This article refutes a range of claims that have been made about the PMC, in order to encourage debate and discussion:

• The PMC will not be built with donated American money. The Health Minister recently ordered that the facility be funded from the PNG health budget.
• The PMC will not be able to do all the things that a big city hospital in the USA or Australia can do, such as heart surgery, kidney transplants, and radiotherapy. None of these procedures will be available at the PMC.
• The PMC will look after rich people with similar medial conditions that are treated at Port Moresby General Hospital, but in more salubrious surroundings.
• The PMC will not pay for itself. The 150 inpatient beds in PMC will not be filled with fee-paying patients (at K4000 per day).  For the PMC to be viable the government will have to heavily subsidise running costs, to the detriment of other health services.
• The PMC will not be useful for training. Training health workers in the PMC will not help them function usefully in PNG health centres and provincial hospitals.

Mola: PMC will destroy public health sector

By ELIZABETH MIAE

THE proposed Pacific Medical Centre (PMC) is a private, political initiative that will do more harm to the public health sector then meet the health needs of Papua New Guineans as proclaimed by its supporters.

Head of reproductive health, obstetrics and gynecology at the UPNG school of medicine and health sciences, Prof Glen Mola, highlighted this when presenting a report titled New super hospital might jeopardise PNG hospital sector at the National Research Institute yesterday.

His report said potential donors, including the Clinton Foundation and Seventh-Day Adventist institutions in the United States and development partners in PNG, had refused to support the PMC.

The discussion on the PMC attracted a good number of representatives from various sectors including the public.
Mola outlined various issues relating to how the whole project was initiated through discussions in America by PNG’s ambassador Evan Paki with certain interested groups to Health Minister Sasa Zibe’s involvement, the inclusion of PMC into the national health plan and, more importantly, the source of funding for the whole project.

He argued that the diversion of scarce health funds to the PMC could lead to the complete collapse of the struggling PNG hospital sector and a massive deterioration in health care for ordinary Papua New Guineans.

“The history of PMC is obscure and all of us are struggling to know where this is coming from, there’s a lot of mystery in it,” he said, adding that he was concerned that the American groups that were planning to build the PMC were working through politicians and not through the PNG health planning process.

He said he had met with the representatives who visited PNG last April and discussed how best to improve the current health system to the point of taking them on a tour of the Port Moresby General Hospital (PMGH).

“Why are politicians so stridently in support of this project?

“When we plan, we plan health facilities for the people, we do not plan for the doctors,” Mola said.

Among the report’s main points were that PMC would:

• Not be built with donor money but by PNG health budget;
• Not be able to perform specialist services;
• Look after rich people with similar medical conditions that are treated at the PMGH;
• Not be self-sustainable but rely on government to heavily subsidise running costs; and
• Not be useful for training of local health workers at health centres and hospitals.

Health Minister Zibe’s vicious attack on Dr Glen Mola

Health Minister Sasa Zibe sent a vicious email to Dr Glen Mola on April 27th after the good Doctor expressed his misgivings about the governments plans for its extravagant Pacific Health Centre.

The government is proposing to build the Pacific Health Centre outside Port Moresby at a cost of some K500 million while regional hospital are left to crumble and the rural health system collapses from a lack of government funding.

Zibe, in his stinging attack told Dr Mola he should be ashamed of himself as a clinician and health educator as PNG’s health indicators are some of the worst in the world, conveniently forgetting of course the government’s woeful underfunding of the health system and the tireless efforts of health workers who struggle on in appalling conditions.

The Ministers email is reproduced in full below so all PNG can see the quality of the leadership the Minister is providing and in the probably vain hope the Minister might both apologize and reconsider the government’s commitment to the PMC project.

——– Original Message ——–

Subject:	FW: PNG Launch of Pacific Medical Center (PMC) Project (in 3rd week of May or earlyJune 2010?) – when PM is Available
Date:	Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:15:50 +1000
From:	Hon. Sasa Zibe <s.k.zibe@global.net.pg>
To:	‘glenmola’ <glenmola@dg.com.pg>

Dear Professor Mola

You seems to be very skeptical about PMC.

You can say what ever you want in the media about PMC, you are just only wasting your time and breath.

Your days are over and you will soon retire and head down under where everything is ready for your retirement. I will dwell with my problems and so, let me fix the problems and issues in the way I think is best for me.

Your advice on health issues are out of date.

Why, I am making this statement because same advice you had given to the current health Managers of PNG Health Work Force are fortunately or unfortunately your students whom you taught and advised them to implement health care issues seems to have been struggling to implement your advice over the years.

Look at our health indicators – the worst in the world! you should be ashamed of yourself as an educator and advisor in the health sector.

Your very students whom you taught and advised are struggling to implement the health care services in PNG.

This problem is not created overnight and can not be fixed over night.  I blame you and John Vince for these problems because you were or you are still a Advisor to PNG Health Sector.   How long have you guys been advising the health workforce in this country?

It is about time that we will find our own solutions and new advisors to the problems you have created over the years.

Now, let me make this very clear to you!!!  Don’t bother to waste your time because Paul and I will not listen to your outdated advice.

We will build PMC with or with out you and your cronies.

Sasa Zibe

Minister for Health.

I took Pacific Int’l Hospital to court, be alert and don’t be cheated

By Dr Amai

I was once employed by Pacific International Hospital (PIH) in 2004 to 2006 and during my employment found out how the Management cheat staffs and swindled money from patients. I was terminated for being vocal and literal against these UNETHICAL practises. They insisted that I should sign a “Mutual Indemnity Deed of Release” before I could receive my final entitlement!!

I had all my evidences and WITHOUT fear took PIH to court. I would like to inform and alert the public of what they should know.

If you are a new employee, make sure that the terms and conditions of your contract are reviewed by a lawyer.

• My contract states that I would be insured but I was NOT (PIH is yet to pay my Worker’s Compensation for the accident I incurred during my employment because I was not insured by them)
• Be sure to receive your Payslips and Annual Statement of Earnings (PIH was not paying Income tax to IRC for more than 3 years until I insisted on getting my Statement of Earning; even then only partial money was paid)

Below are list of Organizations and individual who were cheated of their money while getting treatment at PIH:

1. Mineral Resources Dev. Company Limited (MRDC) – for patient late Mr.PIUS FRED
2. International Education Agency (IEA) – for patient Rohana Sirimanne
3. Pastor Bill Page (Kaugere Four Square Church) for patient Nancy Page
4. National Teacher’s Insurance Limited
5. RH Limited – for patient Chin Siew Sing

There are many other individuals out there who have had similar experiences.

All evidences can be made available to the respective parties upon request. Do not hesitate to contact me.

PIH management also falsified information in their Affidavit to the National Court. They couldn’t come against my evidences in honesty; they could only come up with LIES…

WHAT A SHAME!!

BE WISE PAPUA NEW GUINEANS…

Dr.Joshita J.Amai

Dr Maima promises K4 billion in new health funding from the US

Dr Samual Maima of Port Moresby has hit out in defence of the government’s ‘Super Hospital’ plans claiming the K500 million cost is only one part of a total of K4 billion in new funding for the health sector that is coming from the United States.

Dr Maima says even US President Barak Obama is part of the funding equation that has seen massive amounts of money being raised from American Foundations and businesses.

The government had promised an announcement of funding support for its planned Pacific Medical Centre from Bill Clinton at his Global Initiative meeting in New York  last month, but that event passed with no mention of the super hospital or funding for PNG.

The super hospital proposal is opposed by most medical practioners in PNG, but Dr Maima says he does not see why there should be so much negavility and blames the current health sector crisis in PNG on a failure by the Deaprtment to draw down allocated funding.

This is the full statement by Dr Maima:

IN the recent weeks, professionals and individuals have expressed outrage against the Pacific Medical Centre.

Some of the equipment in the proposed PMC will boast of the latest in cutting edge technology.

I take this opportunity to enlighten the poorly informed public on the evolution and planning of the PMC. Two years ago, several American doctors had lively meeting and discussion with the current director of accident and emergency department of PMGH, Dr Sam Yockopua. Through him and certain concerned civil and corporate American citizens started a massive fund raising drive having seen the very plight and poor condition of the PMGH. Even US president Barack Obama was brought into the equation of raising US$4 billion.

The decision to invest US$500 million was not initiated by the PNG government. The remaining US$3.5 billion is for training and bringing the most recent medical equipment and technology to PNG.

Such a huge capital investment will create a massive job market for health workers and support staff, medical and scientific research, and in the process, stabilise and transform the local economy. It will also create training of subspecialties of medical professionals where UPNG medical school is struggling to meet the growing population’s demand in the provision of better health services.

The involvement of the PNG government, through the Health Department, must be seen as a moral obligation and it is duty bound to do so given the scenario in that the initiatives were taken by civil and corporate societies from another country.

I do not see any reason why there should be so much negativity from the well known health professionals. While I am just as disappointed with the neglected state of the rural health centres, it was not due to funding. Over the years, the government has pumped sufficient funds but the biggest problem has been the inability of the Health Department to drawdown what has been budgeted for.

There has been gross technical incapacity on the part of the health department and this is where our so-called health professionals can advise and synergise with other technocrats such as architecture, surveyors, civil engineers and other technical people to produce substantive project proposals to drawdown what has been budgeted for.

Year after year, because of the unused budgeted funds, they have been returned to the consolidated revenue by the Department of Finance. Now that some concerned citizens overseas are giving the much needed capital investment on a golden plate, PNG must make full use of this opportunity to modernise its medical facilities.

Owing to the fact there has been systemic corruption and technical incapacity among the personnel in the NDOH, whom most are not innovative thinkers and planners, the overall health system of PNG has been on the demise. The evolution of PMC has nothing to do with the emergence of LNG and some of the presumptuous “count the eggs before they are hatched” statements by certain individuals only show some bias and conflicts of interest because of private and commercial interest in the health industry in PNG.

Robbing the poor – another doctor speaks out against Zibe’s plan

Robbing the poor to feed the rich is how Dr Kristoffa Robert Ninkama, of Mt Wikauma in Chimbu Province, describes Health Minister, Sasa Zibe’s plans to build the Pacific Medical Centre ‘Super Hospital’

Writing to the newspapers last week Dr Ninkama said:

I REFER to Dr Mathias Sapuri’s statement that “PMC is government’s health plan”.

My advice to him and his cohorts is to leave the taxpayers’ money out of this outrageous idea.

I have no qualms if this project is a wholly privately-funded venture.

I do, however, oppose this concept of “robbing from the poor to feed the rich”.

The government has fiduciary responsibilities to the Port Moresby General Hospital and its health facilities throughout the country.

It is thoughtless for someone to think and suggest otherwise.

Greed should not dull common sense.

Use the taxpayers’ money to upgrade the PMGH and train its manpower.

PMGH has the potential to be a world class hospital with proper planning, thought and support from the government.