Issue: 21 Volume: 3 Website: www.cmsfhp.org & www.nfhsdp.org October—December, 2016

NFHSDP is funded by Ok Tedi Mining Limited, while CMSFHP is funded by the CMCA portion of the Western Province People’s Dividend Trust Fund. Both Programs are managed by Ok Tedi Development Foundation and implemented by Abt Associates .

For any inquiries regarding the Newsletter or the Programs contact:

CMCA Middle and South Fly Health Program or North Fly Health Services Development

Program

P.O Box 278, Kiunga, Western Province, Papua New Guinea Phone: (675) 649 1075/1085

Fax: (675) 649 1042

www.cmsfhp.org www.nfhsdp.org

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In August 2016, 13 communities in Mana-wete and Kiwaba Trust Regions committed to adopting the Healthy Islands concept, which aims to empower individuals, families and communities to achieve better health and quality of life through community action and environmental management. As part of this process, the CMCA Middle and South Fly Health Program (CMSFHP) conducted a Vil-lage Health Volunteer (VHV) training, for which, each community selected a male and female to participate. The role of a VHV is to assist community lead-ers to coordinate community activities in relation to health; to be a positive role model in the community by practicing healthy hab-its; to encourage safe, healthy practices in the community through health education; to provide support to families to prevent health problems arising; and, to be a link between the health services, village and families.

Training was conducted over a 5 week period at Kawiapo Village, which began imple-menting the Healthy Islands concept back in 2011. A positive spin-off from hosting the course in the village was that it reignited community interest in adopting the Healthy Islands concept after improvements were seen to be made in the village through active community participation. In the end, 20 men and women completed the training and graduated as VHVs. Commu-nity leaders, teachers, and health workers from participating communities were invited to attend the last week of the training to for-mally introduce the role and responsibilities of their VHVs. Support from the community and the health centres will be crucial to the VHVs’ success.

(Continued on page 2)

Inside this Issue:

Page 2: * Snake Bites on the

rise in Western Province

Page 3: JICA volunteer fin-

ishes at hospital Page 4:

* Nupmo Women’s Association patrol

Roll out of Village Health Volunteer Program in Manawete and Kiwaba

A trained VHV conducting a community awareness session.

As of July 2016, Abt JTA has changed its name to

Abt Associates

Page 2 www.cmsfhp.org & www.nfhsdp.org Fly Helt Nius

Issue 21—Volume 3

VHV training a success

Snake bites are on the increase in recent months along the Fly River according to CMSFHP. CMSFHP clinical staff have expressed this after Suki and Tapila health facilities re-ported two deaths from the venomous Papuan Black snake. CMSFHP Program Manager, Kelly Kewa explained the reasons for the increases in snake bites. “The increase in bites might be because the water level has risen and inundated dens of the snake thus they are seeking higher ground where people live or simply because it is their mating season,” Kewa explained. CMSFHP clinical staff who conduct health patrols in CMCA villages have also been cautioned and given snake bandages to administer snake bite first aid if they en-counter such a scenario.

“We are doing our best to promote aware-ness, just recently we had a session on snake bites with OTDF staff who were pre-paring to patrol the CMCA areas and also preparing material for our partners,” Mr. Kewa said. As anti-venom is not readily available at many facilities in Western Province, and not one anti-venom works for all snakes, Mr Kewa is calling on people to be vigilant when tracking into the bush lands or while in their villages. “People must be very careful and take extra care when going to the gardens, fishing or just while they are in their homes in the village,” he added. If you or someone in your community is bitten by a snake, immobilise the limb and apply firm pressure around, above, and below the bitten area with a broad pressure bandage without cutting off circulation. Seek immediate medical atten-tion.

One VHV from Manawete expressed his belief in a healthy and educated community, and took a lead in conducting health awareness in the practical training sessions. A highlight for him was the opportunity to share his experience in advocating the

benefits of family planning in his community, which he hoped to continue on his return to his village. Upon completion of the training, VHVs were tasked to return to their village and identify health issues affecting their communi-ties. They were then to prepare activities and source materials to facilitate health awareness sessions on the chosen topics. Over the months of October to December, CMSFHP have pro-vided post-training supervision to the VHVs. CMSFHP VHV coor-dinator, Nelson Witi, was happy with the VHVs progress during these visits. “The VHVs immediately implemented the knowledge and skills learned in their respective communities,” Witi stated. Since 2014, the Program has trained 98 VHVs across the 5

CMCA trust regions in Middle and South Fly, and an additional

26 VHVs in North Fly District. The focus going forward is to

work closely with VHVs and communities committed to improv-

ing the health and welfare of the community and supporting

them to achieve healthy village status.

Snake bites increase along the Fly River

Backyard Nutrition gardens in Kawiapo village, a part of the Healthy Islands concept

Remove rubbish or materials from around your property where a snake could hide

Keep grass trimmed around your property

Be extra cautious walking through long grass and bush

Minimise food sources that may attract snakes to your community

Tips to Preventing Snake Bites

Issue 21—Volume 3

www.cmsfhp.org & www.nfhsdp.org Page 3 Fly Helt Nius

JICA Volunteer Finishes 2 years at Hospital A Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) volunteer has left Kiunga hospital after two years of services to return to Tokyo, Japan for further studies.

Takayoshi Sakurai, who is an Infection Control Nurse, was the first JICA volunteer to be stationed at Kiunga to assist the hospital. While the 30 year old Takayoshi will miss the food and the people of Kiunga and Western province, he is determined to complete his studies and return to the mining township to give back more. “I want to complete my studies in a Japa-nese School of nursing and come back as a medical staff, so I can give back more to the people here,” the softly spoken Ta-kayoshi said. Under the Japanese and PNG Government agreement, JICA medical volunteers are unable to administer medical care. Alter-natively, the volunteers provide advice and training to medical staff in the hospi-tal. “It’s hard as a volunteer sometime but at

least we give back to the people that is

important.” He said.

Takayoshi arrived in 2014 and was sent to Mount Hagen for three weeks to learn Tok Pisin and English. After that he was de-ployed to Kiunga. “This is my first time to PNG... I never

knew where PNG was so I had to do re-

search. I accepted the offer and was hap-

py to find life here was so simple com-

pared to where I came from in Tokyo.” He

explained.

While at Kiunga hospital, he worked with the staff to improve infection control, as well as in the villages and schools around Kiunga, starting with simple techniques. “Simple things like putting on gloves, washing hands, rubbish disposal and many others had to be corrected. But there has been change and I am happy.” He said.

Some of his projects aimed at improving health standard included paper towel in-stallations in all hospital wards, mosquito nets in wards, health awareness to schools and communities, creation of vari-ous posters and infection control messag-es like washing hands, disposing rubbish properly, and general day to day check-ups and advice to staff. Former Doctor in charge at Kiunga Hospi-tal, Julius Plinduo, acknowledged Ta-kayoshi’s efforts and contributions to the hospital and community and would like to see the hospital staff take on board and expand Takayoshi’s work. “There have been changes, he has done well so it’s now up to our staff to keep doing their bit to upkeep the infection control measures put in place and also expand on this by introducing other healthy practices,” Dr Plinduo expressed. He said these are simple healthy and hy-gienic practices and these improvements, like the mosquito nets in wards and using hand gloves while handling a patient, must be maintained. Takayoshi dreams of completing his stud-ies and obtaining a degree to go with his diploma in Hygiene and Infection Control

and return to PNG or another developing country. “I will miss Kiunga, it’s like my home in PNG and I would love to come back. I will miss the food here; I love the protein like crocodile and cassowary meat, fish, eels and sago grubs and the many different greens. Mostly I will miss aigir and saksak(sago),” he expressed. He went on to thank the Kiunga Hospital and Abt Associates for the opportunity and wished he could give back to the North Fly Health Services Development Program (NFHSDP). “I want to express gratitude to Abt Associ-

ates and Kiunga Hospital staff and hospital

administrator Graeme Hill for this great

experience and I wish I could give some-

thing back especially to the NFHSDP which

is doing so much in the North Fly District.

Thank you!” Takayoshi said.

Kiunga Hospital is supported through the NFHSDP.

Sakurai demonstrating infection control measures in the hospital laboratory.

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For 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year, four NFHSDP and CMSFHP staff supported the outpatient department and obstetrics and gynaecology ward at Kiunga Hospital due to staff shortages at this time. Kiunga Hospital Senior Health Extension Officer, Mark Gena, was grateful for the sup-port provided, and was happy to see the Program staff maintain high standard of cleanliness and infection control in clinical areas. “The (NFHSDP and CMSFHP) staff members did not only see patients, but the areas were cleared before and after work. Health edu-cation was given and mosquito nets were provided to families who were coming with

malaria,” Gena explained. “As a concerned health worker, the aim is to serve the sick and they are doing their work but I want to say the timing of the assistance at the time of need during the festive period needs to be noted and appreciated greatly.” Over this period, the number of malaria cas-es seen in outpatients soared to over 700 cases, with many patients having to return on a daily basis for treatment due to a short-age of Mala-1 at the hospital. In total, 3,507 occasions of service were recorded with many patients expressing their gratitude to Program staff for stepping in and lending support when needed.

NFHSDP Joins Nupmo Women’s Association Executive Patrol

The NFHSDP joined the Nupmo Women’s Association executive patrol at the beginning of October. The patrol was arranged by the Nupmo women’s trust and OTDF, and visited 18 villages in the region with the purpose of updating women in their community of the CMCA plans. The Nupmo Women’s Associa-tion has acknowledged the presence of the two health programs delivering health in Western Province and urge women to im-prove health standards in their various com-munities. Their executive patrol was aimed to do awareness on what women in the communi-ty can do with the funds available to them with objectives such as reporting and up-dating on CMCA funds of the women’s por-tion, a review of the ten year development plan priorities, re-election of new women representatives in each village, and health awareness to all women.

NFHSDP health officer, Sandra Yamuwe, trav-elled with the patrol team to five of the vil-lages and said it was a very interesting trip with a lot of activities carried out. “Generally the patrol itself was fun and very interesting and the hospitality was great. I joined the team doing chopper visits to vil-lages under the Ningerum Local Level Gov-ernment and the CMCA under North Ok Te-di.” Yamuwe said. She added that some of the activities carried out during the health visits included immun-isation and updating of child health registers, family planning and antenatal clinics, general screening including tuberculosis, and aware-ness on women’s health issues, specifically cervical and breast cancer.

She reported that there had been no health patrols done in the area recently until the patrol’s visit. Communities and the Women’s Association were pleased to see the pres-ence of a health worker and thanked the NFHSDP. Yamuwe explained that health and educa-tion are the biggest needs according to the communities visited and is considered the most important priority in their ten year de-velopment plan. Villages visited during this patrol were Kole-

bon, Walawam, Bongkim, Derongo, and

Kumkit.

Program Supports Hospital During Festive Period

Issue 21—Volume 3

Prevention is crucial to reduce the burden of malaria in communities. Some simple measures to prevent malaria include: Sleep under an insecticide

treated bed net Empty any buckets or rain gutters

of sitting water on your property and in the village.

Ensure rain water tanks are sealed with a lid

Install fly screens on the windows of your house

If you develop a fever and are

concerned you may have contracted

malaria, visit your local health centre.

Malaria Prevention

NFHSDP is funded by Ok Tedi Mining Limited, while CMSFHP is funded by the CMCA portion of the Western Province People’s Dividend Trust Fund. Both Programs are managed by Ok Tedi Development Foundation and

implemented by Abt Associates .