This photo essay is by Peter Cronau, a producer on the ABC's 4 Corners program. For the accompaning text essay, click here, or on the link at the end of this page.
Papua New Guinea is a nation-state facing many of the problems of a developing nation. However, it is the spread of HIV/AIDS that may be the country's biggest test. The epidemic has the potential to kill thousands, and wreak havoc with the fragile economy.
In Port Moresby General Hospital's unofficial AIDS ward, nurse-in-charge Sister Elizabeth Waken works with dozens of dying patients a month. A nurse for 29 years, Sr Elizabeth struggles to keep up with the increasing numbers being admitted. The ward regularly runs out of bed-sheets, masks, diapers, and even soap and some penicillin medications—patients' families must provide food to their sick loved ones. Papua New Guinea’s health system can’t cope at current levels of the AIDS epidemic—and will be under greater strain as the epidemic relentlessly expands.
Ward 4B in Port Moresby’s General Hospital has become the hospital’s defacto AIDS ward. Many AIDS sufferers in Papua New Guinea become ill with opportunistic diseases such as tuberculosis. Each month the hospital sees 115 new HIV/AIDS cases. The National Health Plan states that if HIV/AIDS continues to rise at the current rate, “70 per cent of the hospital beds in the country would be occupied by AIDS patients in 2010."
Louis Paling spent 25 years in the army. But, admitted to hospital two weeks earlier, so far he hadn’t had a visitor from the services. As well as his illness, he suffers the stigma that many with HIV/AIDS face. On the day of this visit Louis said he was feeling marvellous. Much to the sadness of his family, Louis passed away last month.
Cross infection is a serious risk in the under-staffed and under-resourced Port Moresby General Hospital. Here, a mobile drugs cabinet shared by all presents a clear risk. The impact of this on patients with weak immune systems is obvious. Sister-in-charge of the ward, Sister Elizabeth Waken, says soap is in short supply in the hospital. "I don't have enough bed-sheets, I don't have enough masks. I don't even have enough drugs. Sometimes we run out of crystalline penicillin. Those main common medicines we are always running out."
The opposite ends of the debate—two posters in the AIDS ward, Port Moresby General Hospital. The attitude of