‘He mourns with the women who die’: Doctors advocating for PNG maternity hospital
More than 1400 women give birth on a concrete floor in Port Moresby’s hospital every year. One Townsville doctor is fighting to change that.
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More than 1400 women give birth on a concrete floor in Port Moresby General Hospital each year – conditions which have not changed since the end of World War II.
Flourishing Women (FW) charity director and Townsville doctor Professor Ajay Rane has been travelling around the world for 20 years trying to improve women’s health, and his focus has locked on the PNG as the charity seeks to address needs and meet with the country’s Prime Minister to advocate for a much-needed maternity hospital for the nation’s capital.
Professor Rane said the health needs of pregnant women in PNG was dire.
“We still have 1400 women a year who actually deliver on the concrete floor in the largest teaching hospital in Port Moresby,” he said.
“I mean the concrete floor, because that’s the only place where everything can be hosed down. They’re not even given a mattress, because the mattress has got material, and then that will destroy the mattress.
“We can’t let that sort of situation happen in our neighbourhood where women are not even being given the basic human right needs.”
He said FW was very active in the Asia Pacific region.
“For us, the Pacific is a very, very big focus because it’s so close by, and the needs of their women are just so severe.
“The most primal need is safe maternity and birthing care and the maternal mortality in Papua New Guinea is one of the highest in the world. The neonatal mortality is one of the highest in the world.
“Women are unsafe there, just as far as basic health needs, like delivering a baby are concerned.
“On top of that, obviously you have a massive problem with domestic violence and gender based violence, but we are really trying to work at the level of the health delivery for women of Papua New Guinea,” the Professor said.
He said there were plans to build a new maternity hospital but this may not be completed until 2050 as other projects took precedence.
“There are some obvious projects that people want to think big about. More sort of Sydney-esque or Melbourne-esque, but I don’t think that really should apply to Papua New Guinea at this stage.
“We are really looking for basic infrastructure and healthcare delivery.
“It’s our intention to go there as friends, to go there as supporters and to go there and to make a plea to the (PNG) government to see if they would listen to us and bring this (maternity hospital) project forward as a as really a matter of urgency.”
He said they had the support of the Port Moresby Hospital Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Glenn Mola, now in his mid-70s, who had dedicated his life to helping the health of women in PNG.
“I have been in touch with him for the last 15 years,” the professor said.
“We will support him and we would request an audience with the Health Minister (Jelta Wong) and the Prime Minister (James Marape) of Papua New Guinea.”
Professor Rane said Professor Mola had worked in his role at the Port Moresby Hospital for 40 years.
“He weeps with the women, he bleeds with the women... and he mourns with the women who die.”
Using connections to get scrubs into Western Highlands
Travelling with Prof. Rane is FW’s newest board member, Ashley Finn, who is using his network of regional contacts to help transport medical supplies to PNG and other Pacific nations.
FW’s mission is to prevent and treat birth trauma, prolapse and incontinence and genito-urinary fistulae in women who live in undeveloped countries.
Based in Townsville, Professor Rane has been travelling around the world, including Bangladesh, India, Africa, Nepal and PNG, for the past 20 years volunteering his time.
Professor Rane said Townsville has amazing champions who always put up their hand to help FW, especially with logistics.
“Ash has been an ardent supporter of FW, so when, accidentally, we had a chat and we decided that we would go to Papua New Guinea together, I humbly asked him whether he would consider joining the board of advisers for Flourishing Women and he said yes,” Professor Rane said.
Mr Finn said he was inspired by the charity work of Professor Rane.
“I’m not a doctor, I’m just a material supply businessman. Through my network and my contacts, forwarding logistics, and finding health projects across the Pacific, I feel that I can connect his service delivery into the networks that I deal in,” Mr Finn said.
Mr Finn has already helped to deliver 400kg of medical scrubs to PNG on behalf of FW, donated by the Mater Hospital.
“The other hat I wear is that I’m a board director of LiteHaus International. LiteHaus takes second hand digital devices, mainly laptops and computers, and we repurpose them in developing countries.
“We’ve done about 300 computer labs in Papua New Guinea. So probably every quarter, we send a container out of Townsville to PNG.”
Mr Finn was able to put FW in contact with LiteHaus, and get 400kg of scrubs into the next container heading out to Mt Hagen in PNG’s Western Highlands.
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Originally published as ‘He mourns with the women who die’: Doctors advocating for PNG maternity hospital
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