The disease time bomb on our border

When I was advising Prime Minister Rabbie Namaliu (1988-92) I asked several times about the vaccination rates in PNG's children.

I was assured it was at around 70 per cent and that percentage was reasonable in a developing country. It would help overcome critical problems in the system as a whole. It did not overcome an appallingly low infant mortality rate.

Thanks to some refreshing honesty from the PNG Secretary for Health, we now know that the childhood vaccination rate has slipped to just THIRTY per cent. That is the national average. In some provinces the rate is just TWENTY per cent.

Papua New Guinea has a high birth rate. The largest population age grouping is between one and fifteen.

This is the group most exposed to the consequences of an appalling vaccination rate.

It's why measles and other diseases preventable by vaccination are escalating.

It is why even the insidious disease polio has returned to PNG.

Thirty years ago it had been eliminated in PNG, Today PNG now leads the world...and just not in children.

The Secretary says that in 2005 the vaccination rate was around 70 per cent. I doubt the accuracy of that, but let's assume it is about right.

How could it possibly decline to 30 per cent or less in the 18 years since?

Here is a key time. Until about 2013 Australia was the principal supplier of drugs and medicines to the PNG Health Department. The medicines were subsidised. And they were delivered reliably.

Inexplicably the PNG Government decided to purchase medicines and drugs from a private Southeast Asian supplier.

The terms of the contract have never been revealed. A parliamentary inquiry probed the issue and exposed corruption, abuse, and incompetence. Mainly in the bureaucracy but also at the political level.

But it was inconclusive in terms of criminal charges being laid.

When the decision to purchase supplies privately was public the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, took a strong stand - rightly - and ended all engagement with the PNG Health Department.

A decade on, a failing health system has become a failed health system.

Low vaccination rates are just one symptom of that.

One can't blame James Marape or Peter O'Neill for that. The whole system has failed the good people of PNG.

Extra funding has not fixed the problem. Much of it goes to uncompetitive suppliers - foreign with local agents taking commissions and opening doors.

We have a health crisis on our border. It will inevitably have consequences especially in the Torres Strait at least.

The agreement on defence co-operation is welcome. It adds to our regional security.

But health is a basic human survival issue. In our closest neighbour it is being corruptly neglected.

The position is getting worse. Not better. All the key health indicators are headed in the wrong direction.

We must tell the PNG Government it cannot continue.

We must offer to help, and fund community groups here such as YWAM, to play a role.

The churches here, with strong links to PNG churches, can play a role.

State health authorities - especially Queensland - must be enlisted.

The first target must be preventable diseases in children such as polio.

We cannot have a failed health system on our border. The good people of PNG are crying out for help. We cannot possibly deny giving it.

These are difficult times for our neighbour.

We must help them navigate that difficulty.

If we don't we will inevitably share in the consequences.

We are not isolated from this issue in our neighbour.

We must deliver a firm message to Waigani and do so now!