PNG is failing to provide adequate cancer care for its citizens, a doctor says.
Port Moresby General Hospital‘s (PMGH) chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi said this yesterday during the 57th Medical Symposium in Port Moresby.
Dr Molumi said the main reasons to that was because of the fragmented diagnosis and treatment service, uncoordinated prevention programmes, little or no cancer data and limited support services.
He said the cancer programmes in the country were all fragmented.
“We don’t know who is printing diagnostic services, preventive programmes and treatments services, and who is the diagnosed medical surgical authority, who is doing all the surgeries?” Molumi said.
He said the CT Scans, MRI facilities, histopathology services were done at PMGH.
“We get the patient to get these services here and ask them to go to Lae in Morobe to get radiotherapy,” he said. In terms of preventative programmes, he said that the Non-Government Organisations were doing what they preferred.
“From the department as well, preventive programmes targeted at what, where are our numbers, what are we trying to achieve?”
Dr Molumi said that a holistic integrated approach would be needed for cancer care, with proper data to aid in planning treatment.
TheNational/PNG Health News
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