By FRANCIS RODNEY PULU
PAPUA New Guinea Nurses Association (PNGNA) continues to remain committed in fighting against issues concerning the welfare of nurses throughout the country.
This is because when it comes to addressing and advocating for nurses’ issues in the country, the voice that the nurses rely on is the PNGNA which is located at three Mile in Port Moresby.
As a union legislated by law to address and advocate for nurses’ affairs in the country, it continues to strive for the best to ensure that at least something is done by the respective authorities in matters concerning working conditions and other related matters of the nurses.
As a reporter who has been covering many of the PNGNA’s fight and advocacy for nurses’ welfares, I have seen that this organization has indeed done a lot and even today, it keeps fighting to the end in order to get the expected results it deserves.
And these things won’t be made possible but it is under the leadership of vibrant and visionary leader, the National President Fredrick Kebai and his hard-working executives who work around the clock to ensure issues concerning the Union are addressed and settled forthwith.
One of the important moments that I was part of as a reporter back in 2021 was a national wide strike led by the nurses concerning outstanding industrial awards that they were not receiving.
Again, the voice that the nurses relied on was none other than Mr. Kebai and his executives who fought till the end to ensure things reached the attention of the Department of Personnel Management (DPM), the office of the Industrial Registrar and the National Department of Health (NDOH). And eventually the Treasury and Finance Departments made money available to settle these outstanding claims. Indeed, this was a successful fight.
Last week, I was again part of a one-day meeting between PNGNA, representatives from the national departments and representatives from the departments of Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG).
The national reps were from DPM, NDoH, Treasury and Finance together with ABG DPM, ABG Health and ABG Treasury and Finance.
This meeting was based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Buka last year for nurses in Bougainville who were missing out on some of the outstanding industrial allowances from 2011 till now.
The meeting started with Mr. Kebai stressing about Bougainville being still an integral part of PNGNA and as far as the PNGNA is concern they (Union) will still fight till the end to ensure that the nurses in Bougainville are compensated.
The meeting was a successful one as those in attendance had passed an eight-week working resolution to ensure that the necessary compliance, checks and balance processes are verified with by the necessary authorities like NDOH, DPM and a budget to be drawn and funding made available at Treasury and Finance to settle these outstanding claims.
Meanwhile, Kebai said the meeting on Wednesday was a very special and historical one because of the concerned authorities in attendance.
He was happy about the outcome from the two sides (National and ABG) for passing the working resolution to work together and put in the compliance and check balances so that an accurate budget can be drawn up.
“Our counterparts throughout the country have benefited out of these awards but for our nurses in Bougainville, they have not been compensated. They have been missing out on the industrial allowances or underpaid in allowances,” he said.
Kebai further acknowledged the nurses in Bougainville for their patience despite years of negligence by the responsible authorities.
“As National President, I would like to inform them that their outstanding claims up to now is in progress and will be implemented once the funding is made available.
And I am very firm on this that we have given them (working committees) the timeframe to check compliance and for the accurate budget to be done and after eight weeks funding should be made available and implementation should follow suit,” he said.
