Accessibility

Five to Six hours of dinghy ride over the sea going South-East of Lae City skipping through rough seas is quite tiring. A beautiful scenery along the coastline with one stop over the island market. For the next 2 hours brings us to the delta of Waria River and another 10 minutes going up the river. Zaka Lutheran Mission Station is another 30 minutes of walk uphill for those slow climbers. Before reaching Zaka Mission Station is Zaka Health Center and down the flat land lies Morobe Technical High School. The climate is hot during the day and stays cool at night. Mosquitos are regular and one has to sleep inside a mosquito net at night. The view is magnificent from the hilltop looking over the sea, the Waria River and the background Mountains is where Oro Province lies.

There is no road and airstrip accessibility from Lae into Morobe Patrol Post or not even coastal ships going there. The only means of travel is by dinghy. It is quite risky during windy and rainy seasons when the sea gets rough. 

A Digicel Communication Tower is located right on mission ground providing phone coverage throughout Zaka and the surrounding communities. This ease communication issues however, students and some community members are still disadvantaged to use such services for they will need money to pay for the service.  

History in Brief: Zaka Health Center

Zaka Health Center was first established in the early 1960’s by a Lutheran Health Worker Mr Eavare Omoi who operated in the open up at Mission Station as One Man Aidpost. After a year he moved downhill to now the current location. In the later years people realized the importance of the aidpost and extent further by building a ward for patients using bush materials. After PNG gained independence in 1975 the Lutheran Health Services (LHS) with financial support from the Morobe Provincial government provided two more health workers and provided funds that built the new clinic. Towards early 90’s LHS built four staff houses, replaced the government funded health workers with missionary health workers.  At present only three health workers are serving the whole communities, even the villagers from Oro living along the border travel that far to the health center.

The Proposed Kombris Setup

The Kombris Project and the whole setup, the beneficiaries and community volunteers who will be out there to assist with technical monitoring and community journalism work. There are certain components to the system; 1. Offline Data is where all the offline information such as the Wikipedia that are helpful for teachers, students and health workers, 2. For the paid version the clinic have to pay Starlink in order to connect to the internet and be the reseller of data to the clients. The fees collected will be used to sustain the internet connectivity.

With Kombris project with the installations and trainings for community volunteer’s the people can raise their concerns and issues affecting them. There are many interesting things to talk about in Zaka and Huon Dsitrict using the platform that we will be setup. That all news and information including pictures and videos will be filtered before exposing to other media partners and the public to consume. It is the sole responsibility of the community to take care of the facilities to serve them in the long run.

The students and teachers will be very much interested in the offline information for additional research and educational purposes. The Wikipedia will be very helpful to replace the outdated books in school libraries. 

People are very respectful to any facilities provided by either the government, church or private properties. The old radio installed by ICT & Communications during COVID 19 breakout at the mission house still remains. Only the antenna has fallen off and but the other components still remains in good condition. This shows people do care and willing to take the responsibility knowing the importance of such services.

Challenges at Zaka Health Center  

Zaka Sub-Health Center has gone through a lot of challenges in terms of staff, housing and medicine still persist.

• Shortage of Medical Supplies

The cost of transporting a medical supplies is a huge factor affecting the delivery of medical supplies from Lae to Zaka, Morobe Patrol Post and the transport cost for health workers traveling to Lae and return. The Area Medical Store when not fully stocked with medical supplies often affects health centers including Zaka Health Center. Lutheran Health Services and Huon District fails to provide transportation of medical supplies.

• Common Treatment

At most daily diagnosis and treatment it can reach up between 40 to 50 patients per day. It depends if there is an outbreak the numbers can go up. In that case the health workers have to reach out into the communities targeting the hotspot areas treating patients and making awareness. The common disease treated daily are malaria, strong cough and many are asthma patients that are treated.  

• Health Officials

Staffing has its own challenges especially in rural places. In the previous year’s health workers posted to Zaka Health Center did not served longer. After serving for only a short period of time they left and went to serve elsewhere. They have their own issues either personal or administrative issues that pushed them out of Zaka.

In a recent incident that happened in 2020 the clinic was closed after some commotions among the villagers and the staffs. In retaliation the solar panels at the roof top of the clinic were stolen thus affecting the refrigerator for cooling drugs and other items. This lead to the shutdown of the clinic from 2020 to 2021. The dispute was settled in 2021 and health workers returned to work.    

• Infrastructure

Annual small grants funding from Lutheran Health Services for infrastructure maintenance around K2, 000 to K3, 000 is not enough for maintenance work. The land area is also too small to build staff houses and some of the old staff houses are already deteriorating. Spacing inside the clinic is not enough and everything is squeezed together. The antenatal ward needs to be renovated and there should be a separate injection room.

• Communication

In the previous year’s communication has been very difficult in times of emergency. Contacting Angau Hospital or Morobe Health Center was not possible, the only option was to take the patient by boat to Lae. But with the recent setup of Digicel they can now directly contact Angau for Medivac but at times the digicel mobile tower can shut down for weeks when there is no fuel or other technical issues.

• Partnership

There aren’t any working partnership accept for Morobe Provincial Government being supportive in the earlier years. Few times UNICEF and WHO in partnership with Zaka Health Center are carryout out Polio Program into all communities up the Waria River.