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PNG Flexi Care, Port Moresby (2025)

28/09/2025

YAWS OUTBREAK IN GOILALA AND MALALAUA DISTRICTS

Since the beginning of this year there has been an outbreak of Yaws in some villages of the Goilala and Malalaua Districts.
These two districts share a common border which might explain how the disease has spread between the two areas.
Yaws is a viral infection that causes big, ugly open sores on the body that look similar to tropical ulcers but are different because they are CONTAGIOUS meaning that the sores can be passed from one person to another just by touching (mainly kids but adults too), and because they don't heal up when you give common antibiotics like amoxicillin.
However the treatment is very simple, just one dose of azithromycin tablets will kill the infection and the sores will heal up like magic after one week.
The problem is that it’s very easy to catch the infection again from another person so the Yaws just keeps going round and round the village and the only way to stop it for good is to give the tablets to everybody in the district at the same time. This is called a mass drug administration (MDA). It’s a very big job and quite an expensive exercise because thousands of people have to be reached and given the tablets.
The Central Provincial Health Authority and the Gulf Provincial Health Authority are aware of this outbreak of Yaws and both PHA’s said they will organise MDA but nothing has happened yet. Recent news indicates that village people have brought this disease to Port Moresby as well.
PNG Flexi Care's private contracted health workers working out in the rural villages and NCD settlements are just struggling to treat all the people turning up with these horrible sores.
Unfortunately some of the junior CHW’s in the local clinics and health centres are not experienced with recognising Yaws sores and they are misdiagnosing the sores as “ulcer” and giving the wrong treatment.
If you or your family members have these sores you need to go to a clinic and get treatment with azithromycin.

13/07/2025

MOVEAVE HEALTH SUPPORT SERVICES SUSPENDED
Our sponsored transport to Kerema Hospital for Moveave patients on last week Friday 11 July was the last one for time being. We have been paying from our own company pocket for transporting patients to Terapo, Malalaua and Kerema health facilities and for bringing our private health workers down to Moveave to do mobile outreach clinics and giving out free medicines but our own funds have run out and we have to suspend our services for now, until our financial situation improves. This is very sad because the nearest alternative clinic to Moveave is at Terapo which is often out of stock of medicines, and for those TB patients and emergency cases who need to get themselves to Kerema Hospital for treatment it's almost impossible because of the ambulance hire fees.

01/07/2025

IT'S A RECORD !
130 PATIENTS TREATED IN ONE DAY AT MOVEAVE

Our health team has treated 130 people during a one day mobile outreach clinic at Moveave yesterday Monday 30th June. Another 70 patients who put their clinic books on the table were turned away because we ran out of medicines, otherwise it would have been 200 people treated.

Our amazing health workers Esther and Gabriel worked really hard from 9am to 9pm to see as many sick people as possible because it was only a one day clinic. People were still turning up after dark after coming home from somewhere and hearing about the arrival of the health team.

The mobile clinic was held in a clan building (thank you !) because the Moveave aid post building is still under land dispute.

Other aid posts in the district like Terapo and Malalaua have been experiencing shortages of medical supplies and the five thousand people of Moveave area have been struggling to access health care. Our team arrived with K6,000 worth of medicines we bought from private pharmacies in Port Moresby and nearly all meds were dispensed in the one day.

Most patients were treated for malaria, chest infection, pneumonia, asthma, arthritis, infected wounds, gastro, ear aches, red eye and skin conditions. People with more complicated problems needing dental treatment, xrays and scans, surgery, vaccinations or TB testing were given referrals letters to Malalaua Health Centre, Kerema Hospital (TB) or Port Moresby.

The total cost of bringing private contract health workers from POM and operating this one day outreach clinic was around K9,000. The service was provided free of charge to the village people by PNG Flexi Care using money from our boss's own pocket (Mr Aaron Hayes), no funding from anywhere.

26/06/2025

ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL RUN TO KEREMA HOSPITAL TODAY
PNG Flexi Care again hired the Malalaua Health Centre ambulance to take a group of Moveave patients to Kerema Hospital for their tests and treatments.
Moveave Clinic is still closed (5 years now) and the nearest other clinic Terapo Clinic has been run out of medicine stocks for over a month now.
Malalaua HC is very overwhelmed with sick people coming in from all over the district because many of the aid posts are either closed or have run out of medicine stock.
Even Kerema Hospital itself is low on supplies because somebody broke into the pharmacy and stole medicine supplies two weeks ago.
PNG Flexi Care is trying to help in our own small way and using our own private money on charity basis but there is a limit to what we can do.

18/06/2025

HEALTH SERVICES FOR MOVEAVE VILLAGE - how we are helping

Moveave is a huge village of about 5,000 people on the lower Tauri River in Malalaua District. The only way to get there is by boat or walking through the swamp, there are no roads. The village is divided into two "camps": Heatoare and Heavala (Heavora), each represented by a separate ward councillor.

A brand new clinic building and staff house was opened at Moveave by the Governor General on Independence Day in 2019 but it only operated for 2 years before being closed due to an incident which caused the health worker to leave. Since that time the Provincial Health Authority has apparently been unable to post a new nurse there due to various issues including some kind of dispute over the land on which the clinic was built.

Since the closure of their clinic in March 2021, Moveave people have had to travel up-river by motor dinghy to the clinics at Terapo or Malalaua or downstream to the aid post at Mirivase/Kukipi to seek medical treatment. This has proven difficult for very sick patients, those who can’t walk properly and people who have no money to pay the boat fare / boat hire, so they just stay home and stay sick or even die. Other times they make it to Terapo clinic and find a sign on the door that says “sorry no medicine” and come home frustrated from a wasted trip and still sick. Medicine shortage seems to be a big problem in Gulf Province this year. Some health workers in the province are known to be stealing quantities of medicines from their clinic stocks and selling them to local shops, canteens and market sellers. A lot of stolen medicines are being sold up at Fish Creek where the gold panners get malaria and pneumonia.

PNG Flexi Care has been helping out at Moveave by:

1. Bringing our private health workers to Moveave village from time to time to operate outreach clinics and give out free medicines from our own supplies

2. Hiring dinghy transport to transport Moveave people to Terapo clinic once a week

3. Paying fuel for the Malalaua ambulance to transport Moveave referral patients and TB patients to Kerema Hospital once a fortnight

4. Arranging St John Ambulance pickups from Iosipi to POM for emergency cases

5. Assisting referral cases and surgical cases to come to POM for their treatments and providing our staff to es**rt them to the big hospital for their appointments and scans and operations to make sure they get their treatment.

6. Providing Whatsapp video call consultations for patients at Moveave who cannot travel to a clinic. Our nurse or consulting doctor in POM talks to the patient on video call to understand their health problem and either refers them to hospital or prescribes medicine which we supply for the patient.

We have engaged a village health volunteer at Moveave, Mrs Hellen Ivora to:
- coordinate help for sick people
- es**rt patients to Terapo clinic once a week and Kerema Hospital once a fortnight and make sure everyone gets treated
- check on patients later to make sure they are drinking their medicines and getting better and remind them to attend their next check ups
- be a contact point for the village people if they need to ask for clinic help
Hellen lives at Heavala and her phone contact is 7416 8624.
Our service coordinator in POM is Glynn Iruru 7082 7337.

All these helps we are providing free of charge to Moveave people, we are paying for all the services and medicines from our own pocket with no funding from anywhere, so we are a bit limited in what we can provide. Some weeks when we are short of cash flow we don't run any clinic trips.

If we had more money available we would:
- run clinic trips to Terapo and Malalaua twice a week and Kerema once a week
- run outreach clinics at Moveave once a month
- assist more patients with cancer and other serious conditions to come to POM for treatment
- run health awareness programs in the village to help people avoid from catching TB, malaria and other common sickness

The main thing we would like to see happen in future is the re-opening of the Moveave Clinic and if funding is available PNG Flexi Care is prepared to run it on private contract basis under Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) with Gulf Provincial Health Authority if they are unable to staff and operate it themselves.

AARON HAYES
Director

17/06/2025

YAWS OUTBREAK IN GOILALA

Yaws is a horrible skin disease that mainly occurs in children and youths. Yaws causes big round sores on the legs and arms. The sores look similar to tropical ulcers but they are different, they don't heal up by themselves. The Yaws sores can cause damage to the bones and flesh, leaving the victim with damaged or disabled legs or arms later.

Since early this year there has been an outbreak of Yaws in the Aiwara River area of Goilala District, especially in the Kileipi ward. People in the villages sent photos to prove it and some Aiwara people travelling down to Port Moresby brought the disease with them which caused a secondary outbreak in Goilala communities in Port Moresby. Yaws is highly contagious and spread by person-to-person contact, especially kids touching each other while sitting or playing together.

Yaws is easy to treat with one single dose of medicine (tablets called Azithromycin also known as Zithromax) and our Flexi Care health workers have successfully treated some Yaws victims in Port Moresby settlements. For children and adults who do not have any Yaws sores, drinking the tablets will help them prevent from catching it.

Aiwara River area is very remote in the Owen Stanley mountains and there are no clinics currently operating in the wards there (Kerau, Kileipi and Sopu). Somebody needs to go up there with a big box of Azithromycin tablets and do a mass administration of the medicine (MDA) to treat those who have the sores and those who are at risk of catching it. Just drinking two tablets one time only is all it takes to cure a child, and it only costs K2 per treatment.

Central Province Health Authority is aware of the outbreak and we understand they were trying to include Yaws MDA in their first quarter district health outreach program but apparently they are still "looking for money" to pay for charters to uplift their staff and supplies for the first quarter program.

We at PNG Flexi Care want to sponsor our own private team of health workers to walk up to Kileipi ward on foot to do Yaws treatment and other health checks in the villages there and we wrote to CPHA asking their blessing to proceed with that (at our own cost, free of charge to CPHA and the local people) but CPHA did not reply our emails so we have been holding back because we do not want to proceed without permission in case we might tread on somebody's toes.

AARON HAYES
Director

02/05/2025

PART-TIME / CASUAL POSITIONS - POM based

• REGISTERED NURSE for the role of clinical services coordinator (office based)
• COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKERS Grade 2, 3, and 4 for mobile clinics and village to village health patrols in rural / remote areas
• ASSISTANT PHARMACIST for coordinating distribution of medicines to rural aid posts
• ADMIN ASSISTANT for undertaking office support tasks. Tertiary graduate preferred.

Send expressions of interest by e-mail only to:
The Director, PNG Flexi Care
png.flexi.care@gmail.com

02/05/2025

In an emergency, every second matters ⏱️ — and you could be the difference! 🫶
Learn first aid 🏥 with us and feel confident to help when it’s needed most. Reach out to our team today!

13/03/2025

RETIRED OR UNEMPLOYED NURSE NEEDED AT MOVEAVE
We are looking for a retired or unemployed female nurse or health worker living in Moveave or nearby villages who might be interested in doing part time clinical work at Moveave two days a week so if you know anybody suitable who might be interested please get in touch with us. Ph 3422769 png.flexicare@gmail.com

03/02/2025

𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗣𝗢 𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗖 𝗥𝗨𝗡𝗦 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗣𝗘𝗢𝗣𝗟𝗘
PNG Flexi Care has commenced sponsoring free motor boat runs from Moveave up river to Terapo clinic twice a week for sick people to get their medical care and supplies.
Moveave clinic has been closed for 5 years now and local people are really struggling to get medical care, especially those who don't have money to travel.
Our coordinator at Moveave can be contacted on 74168624 to request assistance with getting any sick person on the weekly trips up to Terapo for treatment. Emergency runs can also be arranged.

The transport service is temporarily suspended this week (first week of February) for safety reasons due to the local fighting.

26/01/2025

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 / 𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐔𝐌 𝐑𝐔𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐇 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑𝐒
(𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒)

If you are an experienced nurse or CHW based in Port Moresby or nearby and not currently working we would like to hear from you.

At this time we are looking for experienced male and female health workers of any age who may be available for short term health service contracts in rural/remote areas.

In particular we are looking for nurses and CHW's who are:

- clinically experienced with at least 5 years practice including rural/remote settings
- not currently working full time anywhere (eg due to being retired or other personal reasons)
- available for short term private contract work away from home (you can select jobs of various durations like one week, two weeks, one month up to six months)
- currently registered with Nursing Council (or CHW) or able to be registered
- skilled at differential diagnosis of common health conditions (including PTB) when pathology testing and diagnostic imaging may not be available,
- physically fit and able to walk either short distances (eg airstrip to village) or long distances (eg village to village health patrol)

To register your interest please send an email to png.flexi.care@gmail.com including details of your training and experience and a copy of your NID card or other photo identification.

25/12/2024

CHRISTMAS DAY OUTREACH CLINIC AT BARUNI DUMP
Our volunteer team spent Christmas Day providing free treatment and medicines to Goilala people living at the Baruni Dump settlement. These people spend their days scavenging for bottles and cans at the dump and selling them to the recycling depot to earn enough coins to live on. They have many health problems due to daily exposure to unhygienic environment and cutting themselves on broken glass and metal in the dump. Many times they have been encouraged to go back to their asples villages and work the land but they are resistant - they say life at the city dump where they at least have access to shops, schools and health care is better than life in their remote villages where they have no services at all, and maybe they have a point.

PNG Flexi Care

28/09/2025

13/07/2025

01/07/2025

26/06/2025

18/06/2025

17/06/2025

02/05/2025

02/05/2025

13/03/2025

03/02/2025

26/01/2025

25/12/2024

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