THIRTY nurses who graduated from the West New Britain School of Nursing will all be employed by the Provincial Health Authority to address the province’s health workforce needs.
The occasion was witnessed recently by Health Minister Jelta Wong, WNB Regional MP Sasindran Muthuvel and Governor Francis Manake. This is the second batch of nurses that the institution has graduated.
Minister Wong acknowledged and thanked Mr Muthuvel for his initiative in the establishment of the school to address the province health workforce needs and continue to support into the future.
Minister Wong said the new National Health Plan to be launched at the end of this month will focus on Primary Health Care as under pinned by Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Government will need to double its health workforce numbers which stands combined at about 11, 000 plus in the next decade. National Department of Health has the mandate for the production of the Health Workforce but is no longer in control of the health training institutions currently.
As part of the strategy to implement the new National Health Plan, this will be addressed through a policy to compel DHERST through Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to consult Health in terms of production of the different cadres of health workers on yearly basis to achieve the right numbers and mix; improve quality grade 12 students basic sciences to get into health colleges and science foundation for medical schools intake; Improve the Health Training Institutions Infrastructure, Equipment, teaching staff numbers; PNG Medical Board and PNG Nursing Council will also injected with adequate level of resources to be proactive in Schools Audit and monitor standards.
“As a government we will ensure that NDoH and DHERST must work collaboratively to ensure the Health Workforce numbers are increased and doubled in the next decade of the next Plan to retire and improve the aging health sector human resources.”
He said each province must plan to ensure they have enough training institutions in their respective provinces to produce their desired workforce required to take on the transfers of national functions to provinces for human capacity for enhanced and increased service delivery to counter the rising population growth.
“West New Britain like East New Britain are pursuing greater power sharing arrangement through the National Service Delivery Framework.
“The Provincial Governments must proactively take on the challenge of human capital and provide necessary infrastructures and appropriate public service structure to improve services to our population. For Health, we require a concerted effort of all levels of government, partnerships for service delivery improvement and health outcomes,” Minister Wong reiterated.
Minister Wong congratulated the graduates for their hard work and choosing health as a career.
“We have a gaping hole in the workforce and we expect all of you to be absorbed in the Public Health System. Health is burdened with high population growth and high disease burden with COVID-19 adding on to the list in the recent times. I urge the relevant government agencies to address the acute health Workforce in the country as a crisis.”