The COVID crisis on our doorstep cannot be ignored

Australia's closest neighbour is not New Zealand, or Timor Leste, but Papua New Guinea. We have a common sea border, and the Torres Strait Islands are just a few kilometres from the Papua New Guinea mainland.

As the former colonial power we have a special relationship with Papua New Guinea, and 45 years after Independence from Australia we remain easily the largest aid donor to PNG.

It is not only in PNG's national interest, but also Australia's, for the recent upsurge in Covis-19 cases across Papua New Guinea to be treated very seriously.

Between 22 and 28 February there were 260 new cases reported – fully one third of the total number of cases reported in just one month since the pandemic began.

The number of cases is not declining and is today average between 40 and 50 a day – and even that is with only half the 22 provinces reporting testing on a daily basis. It can be see safely assumed the real case rate in much higher.

Australia provided generous cash assistance to PNG and other South Pacific nations last year to initially deal with the pandemic. There are serious questions being asked about how the Australian taxpayer funds were actually spent in PNG at the very least.

They certainly have not been spent on a robust testing regime. Since February last year just over 50,000 tests have been conducted in a population of between 8.5 and 9 million men, women and children!!

There may be a number of reasons why virus case numbers have escalated – increased testing is not among them.

In my view the key factor is the totally dysfunctional state of the PNG health system, at national and provincial levels. At independence "health" was a devolved or decentralised function, done without adequate personnel or financial resource to meet the health needs of a population principally living in rural, coastal and remote communities.

Since Independence in 1975, the number of rural health centres has declined by as much as 50 per cent. That is despite a rapidly growing population.

As a result, some key and troubling health indicators have been stagnant at best and gone backwards at worst. Infant mortality, the incidence of diseases such as malaria have increased. Even diseases that had once been conquered such as cholera have returned.

As with the rise in Covid-19 cases, the alarming rise in other serious and fatal illnesses can be largely attributed to the run down state of the public health system. Church health services have been maintained but they cannot carry the burden for the majority of the nation.

It is not just rural health centres that are in decline. The state of all the nation's hospitals, including major national hospitals, is generally poor, or unable to meet the community's demand.

Australia will have to decide, and decide very soon, what support we give the struggling PNG health system to meet the escalation in Covid-19 cases.

The answer is NOT to simply give the PNG Government, and its dysfunctional health system, more cash!

The state of the health system, and the urgency of the escalating need and nationwide incidence of Covid-19, means that Australia must examine new ways of assisting PNG address the crisis.

Firstly, the Australian Government needs to direct more aid, and special funding to the churches which generally operate the best health services in PNG.

It also needs to provide greater financial support for Australian-based NGOs such as YWAM (Youth with a Mission) who does magnificent job delivering vital health services with minimal Australian government assistance. (I declare an interest as having proudly helped YWAM begin its mission in PNG a decade ago).

But there is an even greater need. Australian needs to provide urgent and comprehensive "Capacity Building" assistance to the PNG health system – doctors, nurses and other professional men and women trained in the management of Covid-19 outbreaks.

It is too late in the day to provide capital funding to re-build run down hospitals and health centres. The need is now.

The immediate priority must be skilled and committed personnel.

More testing capacity needs to be supported, but the real need is "people".

There are existing capacities such as the churches, and YWAM, and Rotary, to help deliver the services that are in desperate, and growing, need today.

Recently China offered to "give" Papua New Guinea 100,000 vaccines free of charge. For a population of almost 9 million that is a miserable effort and will be seen as such in PNG – or those parts of PNG where the China stranglehold does not currently exist. Sadly, that sector is diminishing almost daily.

Australia has broadly committed to providing free vaccines for the whole of Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific. For once China is on the back foot.

Vaccinating a population that is 80 percent located in rural communities, many of them remote and coastal and island communities across the nation, will be a massive challenge on its own.

That is going to be a major challenge for Australia and countries such as New Zealand.

But there is a more urgent challenge.

We have an escalating pandemic on our northern border. It clearly will get worse before it gets better.

It requires bold, innovative and multi-faceted solutions.

But even as we do so we must accept that while what we have done since Independence has been welcome, the ways of the past 45 years are simply no longer adequate.

We must respond to the crisis in a way that focusses on "people", and especially highly experienced doctors specialising in disease management and other support

And our response needs to engage in new partnerships with the churches, with NGOs, and the health sector, to help our closest neighbour through a crisis that is simply not going to go away, and is overwhelmingly in the "Australian national interest" to help address.