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The Papua LNG Health Program aims to strengthen the capacity of local health service providers, focusing on health posts and community members within the PAoI.

The Project engaged with six crucial partners – Kapuna Rural Hospital, AIDOCEAN, National Volunteer Service (NVS), Oilmin, ISOS, and the SAGO Network – to implement a range of impactful health initiatives.

Gulf Christian Services (GCS) is a key partner in providing much-needed health care services for remote communities of Baimuru and Ihu Local Level Governments in the Kikori District of Gulf Province.

The partnership with GCS has seen to the delivery of: three health patrols; 163 Tuberculosis (TB) volunteers trained and a new Mess and Sanitation Facility for the KapunaCommunity Health Workers (CHWs) Training School.

Papua LNG also supported logistics for the National Department of Health (NDoH) Standards and Clinician teams’ visit to Kapuna in September 2023. This visit enabled the Health Services Standards Assessment, the results of which were submitted to the NdoH Secretary. In December, Kapuna was awarded a Level 4 Certificate of Accreditation.

This accreditation will allow Kapuna to receive more funding and to increase potential recruitment of additional medical doctors, enhancing Kapuna’s ability to deliver high-quality healthcare to the local community.

Other Health Programs with GCS

• New Mess and Sanitation Facility inauguration.

Kapuna Community Health Worker (CHW) Training new mess and sanitation facility serves 60 CHWs. The health workers now have a clean and tidy mess to have their meals and sanitation facility close by that they can use while school is ongoing. “As CHW students, we are blessed to have this new building. We are so excited it helps us to continue to study and we are not wasting our time to go back to our dormitories to use the toilet, so it is time saving,” says Julie Pukari, head girl of Kapuna CHW training school. “Before the new mess, we had to push our food from the old mess near the girl’s dormitory down to the boy’s dorm, with a wheelbarrow. It was very time consuming and we even had to miss a few minutes of class. It has been a real challenge for us, but TotalEnergies has come to help us out and we are very happy of the help,” says Head boy Junior Henry.

• Logistics support (Barging and Flight support)

Papua LNG provides logistical support for Kapuna’s medical supplies & equipment, cargo, construction materials and fuel drums on its barge. While on the chartered flights, Kapuna is allocated six seats monthly, for medical volunteer doctors to travel from Port Moresby to Kapuna, to support the staff for three months. Kapuna needs fuel to implement health outreach programs in the PAoI and as such is allocated six drums of fuel, on a monthly basis to conduct the health programs and patients’ repatriation to respective villages after their stay at the hospital.

• Days for Girls

This program empowers women and girls through the creation of re-usable menstrual hygiene kits and the skills and knowledge gained from attending the female health and hygiene awareness sessions. Through the program, 285 sanitary kits were produced and 230 of these were sold to women and girls, at an affordable price. Further to this, women and girls are equipped with skills and knowledge on how to look after themselves.

• Health Patrols

The quarterly scheduled health patrols are conducted along the upstream and downstream communities, Orokolo Bay, up Vailala River and into the hard-to-reach communities. 800L of zoom was used to conduct three health patrols this year, covering 3,657 patients in 31 villages.

• Tuberculosis Volunteers

Tuberculosis is a cause for concern in Gulf Province. Kapuna has trained tuberculosis Volunteers, based in their respective communities to identify suspected tuberculosis patients and bring them to Kapuna for early tests and treatment. To date 163 volunteers covering 59 villages have been trained at Kapuna CHW School.

• Residence Medical Officers (RMOs)

The Project further provided logistical support for seven RMOs from the University of PNG Medical Faculty. Kapuna provides then an opportunity to gain experience in rural medical services. One of these RMOs, after completing his academic journey, is now based in Kapuna.

After two missions in the New Guinea Islands region of Papua New Guinea, the New Caledonian Nongovernmental organization AidOcean, with the financial and logistical support from the Project, embarked on a month-long medical mission along the Purari.

In partnership with the Gulf Provincial Health Authority, Gulf Christian Services and the Project, a total of 2,600 patients from 22 communities within the Project Area of Influence in Gulf, were treated from April to May.

The mission team comprising of a team of specialists with AidOcean, health professionals from Kapuna in addition to a pastor, attended to villages along the Purari, Ivo and Varoi rivers, beginning in Poroi 2 and ending in Mapaio.

The Project engaged with SAGO Network, signing a Service Contract on May 28, with the intention of introducing their Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Empowerment Programme in PRL15. SAGO Network started working with four communities namely, Wabo, Subu 1, Subu 2 and Poroi 2. The team started by getting to know the communities and preparing together an action plan.

WASH Committees were also established to oversee the WASH program within each of the respective communities once the awareness and training sessions were completed. Important data such as population statistics, government services, locations and administrative regions and photographs of the community were collected to form a baseline study.

There are a total of five modules to complete and for this year, the first three have been achieved:

• Module 1: Community Engagement and data collection
• Module 2: Community action/participation/Training of the trainer
• Module 3: Hygiene
• Module 4: Drinking Water
• Module 5: Gendered Hygiene and Menstrual Health Management (MHM)

During module two, the SAGO team conducted the Community Action Participation Training & Training of Trainers for community members. There were a total of 18 graduates from Poroi 2 and 10 graduates from Subu 1. Trainings for Subu 2 and Wabo will be conducted in 2025.