St John Association of Papua New Guinea
Who we are
The Order of St John was established officially in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s. The National St John Council of PNG was incorporated by an act of Parliament in 1976.
Papua New Guinea at a glance
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands. It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. Its capital, and one of its few major cities, is Port Moresby. It is one of the most diverse countries on earth, with over 850 indigenous languages and at least as many traditional societies, within a population of just under 6 million. It is also one of the most rural, with only 18 per cent of its people living in urban centres. After being colonised by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea gained its independence from Australia in 1975.
Approximately 85% of the population lives in traditional societies and practice subsistence-based agriculture. Papua New Guinea is richly endowed with natural resources, but commercial exploitation has been hampered by the rugged terrain and the high cost of developing infrastructure.
The country was ranked 145th out of 177th in the 2006 United Nations Human Development Index. PNG has the highest incidence of HIV and AIDS in the Pacific region and is the fourth country in the Asia Pacific region to fit the criteria for a generalised HIV and AIDS epidemic. Lack of HIV and AIDS awareness is a major challenge, especially in rural areas.
What we do
St John Ambulance Service
The service provides emergency response on a 24 hour basis in the national capital, Port Moresby which has a population of 600,000 people. The National Capital District service has seven emergency response ambulances, 4 mobile First Aid stations, one command & control communications bus and a vehicle. A staff of 18 full time paid officers is supported by 12 regular volunteers and 34 part time volunteers and operates its own vehicle repair workshop. The service handles about 13,000 emergency response callouts per year. The ambulance service operates in Wewak and Madang; one ambulance in each location with one full time officer and volunteers.
St John Emergency Communications centre
The centre handles the emergency calls from all over PNG for Police, Fire and Ambulance. The current number of calls being handled by the centre is about 1000 calls per day of which about 150 are police calls. The centre has a team of 13 which includes an ambulance dispatcher.
St John Education Service
The education service provides training in first aid at all levels to industry and government for a fee per person per course. It also trains volunteer instructors who carry out community first aid training in villages to increase the level of care at home and try and relieve some of the burden from the national health system.
St John Blind Service
St John PNG runs a special education centre for the people with visual impairments. It trains clients in the skills required to take up a job or learning how to cope with living in the community. The service also under takes screening of school children and villages and to date this year has screened about 8,000 people. The staff consist of a Director and two special education teachers funded by the education department and three support staff paid by St John plus five volunteers working at the eye clinic assisting with eye glass repairs, eye testing, and minor operations.
St John Blood Service
St John operates the blood service on behalf of the Department of Health in 28 locations throughout PNG. Funding is provided by the Department of Health(NDoH). The service currently has about 30,000 blood donors and are aiming to increase to 50,000. The service is supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in training and technical support.
St John Health Service
St John PNG on the first of January 2007 took on the responsibility of managing the second largest government medical facility in the Capital, Port Moresby, known as the St John Health Centre, Gerehu. The centre has a current staff of 12 St John personnel and 18 Health Department personnel handling between 400 to 600 patients per day. The hospital will provide the following services: outpatients; a TB/HIV clinic; a maternity Ward; Accident & Emergency Department; two 20 bed wards; an ante-natal clinic; a 'Well baby' programme; family planning services; and eye clinic; dentistry and pathology and X-ray.
St John Volunteer Service (Operations Branch)
This was previously the Operations Branch which recruits volunteers for the purpose of training volunteers to be able to support the above services. The Volunteer Service is actively involved in providing First Aid stations at sporting public events. Included within the Volunteer Service is a strong Cadet programme that trains young people in various skills, character building, and a strong sense of citizenship.