hiv/aids or cancer - you win

I am increasingly distressed by the glaring inadequacies in in the attention given to the various health problems in this country of mine. Foremost on this list of my rash-inducing stresses is the fact that millions of kina are being pumped into addressing the HIV/AIDS endemic (it really is endemic!!) in this country and at the same time, someone with a curable form of cancer cannot get chemotherapy!

Sadly little old Cancer is just not as sexy as HIV/AIDS in terms of funding from international organisations. Oh sure - we've already found the cure to cancer, so let's attack the other pandemic. In June 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS called for a global investment of US $7-$10 billion annually over the next decade to help prevent the spread of HIV in low and middle-income countries - one of which is mine. It now seems like there are a thousand different groups appealing for this international funding in order to combat the problem at home. This is fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine if you don't have a curable form of cancer ... because in this country, your cure, the same cure which is easily and readily attainable in our neighbouring coutnries is simply unavailable here.

It's being left up to independent citizens and organisations such as the PNG Women Doctors Association to raise funds in order to purchase the appropriate chemo equipment. Why isn't the National Government paying for this??!! Instead, my freind, Miss Finah, her little niece who has leukemia, has to raise funds to go down to Australia for treatment. Most people in PNG unlucky enough to have cancer but lucky enough to have a treatable form of cancer, cannot afford to go to Australia, cannot even begin to raise the funds to make this trip - that's if they can even get to a doctor in time and get correctly diagnosed early enough and make their way out of their village, find the airfare to come to a big city ... only to be left medically stranded!

I mean, I know HIV/AIDS is massive here - it's claimed by the WHO that in a population of about 6 million, it's estimated that one out every 5 PNGns has it - that will make us a DYING people in 15 years time. But I cannot see where when we have a cure for some types of cancer, when we have the ability to save up to 8000 people a year from certain death for lack of proper treatment, that we don't first invest in that course.

And this is just one of the inadequacies in attention given to the health needs of this nation's people - If you do come from a developed country, you need to understand that the issue of FUNDING by all those thousands of benevolent international organisations, isn't funding without conditions - and right now those funds aren't exactly balanced and are heading in directions that do not necessarily attend to the very real needs in other aspects of our society. And our National Govenrment is not picking up the slack. And little 8 year old girls have to thank God they were born into families that are capable and educated and able to get the right diagnosis, secure the right treatment in Australia and then, with expedience, raise the funds by-every-mean-necessary, then when all of that is done, go down south and put their babies into chemo and meet their palms in prayer.