SERIOUSLY ill Papua New Guinea nationals visiting the Torres Strait have ignited a furious debate over Australia’s broader health responsibilities in the region.
The Commonwealth and Queensland governments are considering closing down tuberculosis (TB) clinics on the Outer Islands, a move that experts fear could lead to the spread a strain of the disease described by one Queensland Health officer as “a death sentence”.
Dr Justin Waring, of the national tuberculosis advisory committee, warns: “In the short term, not treating these people who come across the water to Australia runs the risk of transition and escalation of the drug resistance and ultimately potentially putting Australian residents at risk.’’
Speaking on the ABC’s 7.30 report on April 19, Dr Waring said simply stopping the treatment of these people was “a dangerous prospect”.
In March, 2010, Queensland Health acting deputy director-general Bronwyn Nardi said it was not unusual for 60 percent of Thursday Island Hospital inpatients to be PNG nationals, with a high number of those being treated for TB.
“We know that in Papua there is an extreme drug resistant tuberculosis which is essentially a death sentence,” Ms Nardi said told a Senate Committee.
Patients who travel to the Torres Strait clinics from PNG’s impoverished western province have little or no prospect of effective treatment in their home country.
Medical experts say PNG will not be in a position to manage its TB crisis for at least another decade.
Clinics on islands such as Saibai routinely treat PNG nationials suffering multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB).
Limited surveys estimate that between 10 and 20 percent of tuberculosis in PNG could be MDR TB.
Dr Waring said if the disease was poorly treated in PNG there was a risk of escalation.
“It’s not just the individual who doesn’t get better, it’s transmission of worsening drug resistance,” he said.
Queensland Health says it provides the services to PNG nationals ‘’under the direction of the Commonwealth’’, which contributed $4 million a year of the total $18 million cost of the services.
“The provision and scope of health services for PNG nationals are Commonwealth government responsibilities,” the department said in a statement.
However the federal government denies this, saying the Commonwealth does “not direct Queensland in providing these services” and the extent of services was “a decision by Queensland health”.
Either way, the doors to the services may be shut down, and it is medical clinicians in the front line who face the moral and legal responsibility of closing the doors on people desperate for help.
Queensland Liberal senator Russell Trood says Australia faces a challenging dilemma in humanely treating sick PNG citizens who have few or no health services in their own country.
“The Commonwealth seems to be turning its face away from a clear responsibility,’’ Senator Trood said.
“We are talking about a relatively small amount of money to deal with a potential threat to Torres Strait Islanders.’’
Dr Waring agrees. “In the short term, not treating these people that come across the water to Australia runs the risk of transition and escalation of the drug resistance and ultimately potentially putting Australian residents at risk.”
From: http://www.torresnews.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1731%3Adeadly-tb-strain-will-spread&catid=3%3Anews